Steve Teixeira, a former executive at Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter in the Seattle area, who took on the role of chief product officer at Mozilla Corp. nearly two years ago, is suing the company for alleged discrimination and other claims following his medical leave for cancer treatment.
The suit, filed on June 24 in King County Superior Court in Seattle, alleges that Mozilla and some of its executives “campaigned to demote or terminate Mr. Teixeira citing groundless concerns and assumptions about his capabilities as an individual living with cancer.”
Mozilla, known for its Firefox web browser, denied the allegations and stated it will “vigorously defend” against the lawsuit. A spokesperson commented that the company is “confident that the facts will demonstrate that we have acted appropriately.”
The defendants named in the suit include the Mozilla Foundation, Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers, former CEO and current Executive Chair Mitchell Baker, and Chief People Officer Dani Chehak.
Teixeira worked at Microsoft for nearly 14 years in areas such as developer tools and technologies, before moving on to Facebook as director of program management and design and Twitter as vice president of product.
The suit states that Teixeira joined Mozilla in August 2022 with the understanding that he would eventually be positioned to succeed Baker as Mozilla CEO.
Teixeira received commendable internal reviews for his performance leading the Mozilla Products Group, which included increasing Firefox’s desktop market share, automating Mozilla’s display advertising products, repairing its services infrastructure, overseeing the acquisition of Fakespot, and expanding Mozilla’s AI initiatives.
Signifying his importance to the company, Mozilla opened a Seattle-area office in February 2023 because Teixeira resided in the area, according to the suit.
In October 2023, Teixeira, aged 52, was diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a rare but treatable form of cancer. He took an approved 90-day medical leave through early February under the Family Medical Leave Act, the suit states.
Shortly before his return in early February, Baker stepped down as CEO and returned to the role of executive chairman. Chambers, a Mozilla board member, was appointed as CEO for the remainder of the year.
Upon his return, the suit claims Teixeira was asked to execute and take false responsibility for job cuts that were planned during his absence. He questioned the necessity of these layoffs and expressed concerns about their potential disproportionate impact on women and people of color, according to the suit.
He received a negative performance review in March, with the review stating, “Your organizational design…resulted in a leadership team that could not succeed in your absence, which is fundamentally an organizational weakness and risk to the business.”
The suit states he was back at work full-time and no longer undergoing treatment.
In early April, Teixeira informed Chambers that he had received another cancer diagnosis. According to the suit, a neuroendocrine tumor on his pancreas had metastasized to his liver. Responding to a message from GeekWire this week, Teixeira mentioned that both tumors are small, he is not in active treatment, and the overall prognosis looks “very good.”
On April 24, Mozilla formally proposed to demote Teixeira to senior vice president of technology strategy with a 40% reduction in total compensation. He declined the role change.
The suit claims he had not requested any additional flexibility related to his diagnosis.
The suit further alleges that Chambers pushed forward, informing other Mozilla leaders about the demotion and telling Teixeira’s direct reports that “it would be tough for him to continue to run a large team because of his health,” without Teixeira’s consent to share information about his health internally.
Teixeira wrote to Chehak, the chief people officer, saying, “it has become apparent that Mozilla is simply uncomfortable continuing to employ me as CPO because I have cancer. It’s the only reason I’ve been given for efforts by the Board and Laura to push me into a diminished role with reduced pay in obvious hope that I will leave quietly.”
Chambers informed Teixeira two days later that his options were to accept and start working in the new role, accept the role and take a long-term leave, or decline the role and “move to a severance conversation,” according to the suit.
Teixeira was placed on administrative leave on May 23 against his wishes and without explanation, the suit says. As of the publication of this article, he is still listed as chief product officer on Mozilla’s leadership page.
Here is Mozilla’s full statement on the case:
“We are aware of the lawsuit filed against Mozilla. We deny the allegations and intend to vigorously defend against this lawsuit. Mozilla has a 25+ year track record of maintaining the highest standards of integrity and compliance with all applicable laws. We look forward to presenting our defense in court and are confident that the facts will demonstrate that we have acted appropriately. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not be providing further comments at this time.”
The complaint alleges discrimination, retaliation, defamation, and unlawful disclosure of medical information, among other claims. The suit seeks a judgment for an amount to be proven at trial. See the full text of the lawsuit below.
Teixeira v. Mozilla et al by GeekWire on Scribd
