Eight former SpaceX employees have sued the company and its CEO, Elon Musk, alleging they were wrongfully terminated for raising concerns about rampant sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
“Musk’s conduct in interjecting into the workplace this juvenile, grotesque sexual banter had the entirely foreseeable and intentional result of encouraging other employees to engage in similar conduct,” the lawsuit states.
The news comes in the same week as a tough young man Wall Street Journal The report that revealed Musk had sex with a SpaceX college intern.
Employees behind the latest lawsuit wrote an open letter, accusing Musk of failing to live up to SpaceX’s “No Asshole” policies and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.
Not long after, at least five of the letter’s authors were fired, with SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell accusing them of making other workers feel “uncomfortable, scared and harassed and/ or angry because the letter forced them to sign something that did not reflect their views.”
The lawsuit is the latest escalation, shedding light on a well-documented work culture at the space company that has been riddled with unprofessional behavior. And it’s not just SpaceX — Musk’s other ventures, notably Tesla, have been accused of similar things.
In 2021, former Mission Integration Engineer Ashley Kosak published an essay describing the company as “so riddled with sexism, the only remedy is for women to leave.”
Kosak claimed that “countless men made sexual advances” towards her, touched her without her consent and even showed up at her home. Even after she brought these incidents up with HR, “nothing was done.”
Then, a month before the employees’ open letter was published, The insider reported that the space company had paid a flight attendant to shut her up after she accused Musk of exposing himself to her and propositioning her for sex. SpaceX paid her $250,000, the documents showed.
The incident clearly infuriated many in the company.
“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, especially in recent weeks,” said the letter, which was signed by at least 400 employees.
Musk has made many sexist comments over the years. In late 2021, he joked in a since-deleted tweet that he’s graduating from his fictional university — called the Texas Institute of Technology and Science to do a raw thing joke acronym — would be based on women’s physical characteristics.
He has also been an outspoken opponent of gender expression, tweeting that “pronouns are bad”. He has accused Senator Elizabeth Warren of reminding him of “my friend’s angry mother” who would “just yell at everybody for no reason”. In March, he deleted a tweet in which he accused his ex-wives of being among the “reasons Western civilization died.”
In short, the letter appears to be a pretty credible documentation of the kind of work culture you’d expect at a company run by a mercurial CEO.
Now, eight former employees who were involved in writing the 2022 letter have filed a lawsuit in California state court, alleging that SpaceX illegally fired them.
They also claim that fellow engineers routinely gave others “crude and derogatory names” in an “attempt for humor, often at the expense of women and LGTBQ+ individuals.”
The complaint revealed that a camera on a Falcon rocket was called the “Top Camera,” referring to an angle that “looks at the end of the second stage.”
The employees are seeking damages to compensate for “lost wages, earnings and other employee benefits, emotional distress.”
It’s the start of what will likely turn out to be a long and ugly court battle in the absence of a settlement.
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