SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk are being sued by eight former employees who alleged that they were fired after raising concerns about sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the company.
In 2022, the eight employees wrote an open letter criticizing Musk for lewd statements he made in person and on X, formerly Twitter. The letter urged SpaceX executives to condemn Musk’s statements and other inappropriate employee behavior that they felt was clearly in violation of the company’s “No A**hole” policy. At least 400 other employees signed the letter.
Following the circulation of the letter, the eight employees responsible were terminated.
In the lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the former employees allege that “Musk personally ordered the Plaintiff’s terminations.”
The lawsuit filed in the state court of California states that Elon Musk is “the leader to a brave new world of space travel, but 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.”
SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell responded to the letter by telling the New York Times the reason behind the employees’ terminations was because they had made other staff feel “uncomfortable.”
The National Labor Relations Board had previously filed complaints on behalf of the employees against SpaceX, with the NLRB claiming the employees were fired for participating in “concerted protected activities.”
In response to the complaints filed by the NLRB, SpaceX filed a lawsuit stating that the NLRB itself was “unconstitutional.”
Wednesday’s lawsuit points to specific examples of Musk’s behavior on X, which the plaintiffs said contributed to SpaceX’s “pervasively sexist culture.”
In one instance, Musk posted to X his plan “to create a Texas university similar to MIT which he would call ‘TITS’ and where ‘Ds [women’s bra size] would get degrees,’ accompanied by an altered photo rendering a rocket to appear to be a giant penis,” the complaint states.
Musk also made a post following a Business Insider article that reported Musk had allegedly sexually harassed a flight attendant. In response, Musk said, “Finally, we get to use Elongate as scandal name. It’s kinda perfect,” along with a laughing emoji.
“Musk’s conduct of interjecting this juvenile, grotesque sexual banter into the workplace had the wholly foreseeable and intentional result of encouraging other employees to engage in similar conduct,” Wednesday’s complaint states.
Musk has denied that he participated in any harassment.
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Engineers at the company allegedly made crude jokes and references in their work, including naming a project the “Upskirt Camera.”
The former employees are seeking an unspecified monetary amount to account for “lost wages, earnings, and other employee benefits, emotional distress.”
