Eight former SpaceX employees have sued the rocket company and its CEO Elon Musk as they alleged that the latter gave orders for their sacking after they accused the company of tolerating sexual harassment in the workplace.
In 2022, the eight employees were fired after an “open letter” was circulated by them within SpaceX in which they alleged that Musk’s “behaviour in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment”, according to the lawsuit filed.
In the lawsuit, it was alleged that Musk “runs his company in the dark ages — treating women as sexual objects to be evaluated on their bra size, bombarding the workplace with lewd sexual banter, and offering the reprise to those who challenge the ‘Animal House’ environment that if they don’t like it they can seek employment elsewhere.”
According to the former employees, Musk’s social media posts worked as an encouragement for the inappropriate work environment in the spacecraft company.
In the lawsuit, SpaceX’s former engineers said that the posts were not just private rantings from the billionaire CEO.
Attorney Anne Shaver, who is representing the plaintiffs, said, “There was no separation on [Elon] Musk’s statements and the company’s statements. When employees raised concerns, they were told: ‘We can’t do anything. SpaceX is Elon, and Elon is SpaceX.’”
“Musk knowingly and purposefully created an unwelcome hostile work environment based upon his conduct of interjecting into the workplace vile sexual photographs, memes, and commentary that demeaned women and/or the LGBTQ+ community,” claimed the eight former employees in their lawsuit.
How did SpaceX react to the lawsuit?
SpaceX has not yet reacted to the lawsuit filed by its former employees. However, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, did react to the previous Wall Street Journal report highlighting sexual abuse allegations made by some former employees.
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Shotwell, informed The Wall Street Journal, that their report painted “a completely misleading narrative” of the company and that “Elon is one of the best humans I know.”
She said that all complaints of harassment are fully investigated by SpaceX and appropriate actions are taken.
Musk’s sexual posts become the focal point of complaint
In one of the posts which was highlighted in the complaint, Musk said to YouTube’s former CEO Chad Hurley, “If you touch my wiener, you can have a horse.”
One time, Musk shared a picture of Bill Gates with a pregnant-looking stomach and wrote, “In case u need to lose a boner fast.” In a response to SpaceX competitors, he once posted that they “[c]an’t get it up (to orbit) lol.”
In another highlighted post, he said he was considering to make a university in Texas appear similar to MIT and proposed to call it “TITS”.
(With inputs from agencies)