(San Francisco) Despite its attempts to cover up the affair, SpaceX is the subject of investigations into accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination within the company co-founded by Elon Musk. A hearing is scheduled for March.
A California government agency, the CRD, informed the aerospace company in January of seven complaints filed several months earlier by former employees. The information revealed by Bloomberg on Tuesday was confirmed by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
In these complaints consulted by AFP, the engineers describe a sexist corporate culture, where comments of a sexual nature and other forms of harassment are tolerated, where women are paid less than men for equal work, and more rarely promoted.
They speak of reprisals against those who tried to protest, up to and including dismissal in their case, after they circulated an open letter criticizing Elon Musk’s behavior on social networks. They note that his humor, often inappropriate online, is emulated internally.
“The harassment was of a visual nature to the extent that the boss Elon Musk made obscene and degrading public statements against women, transgender people and homosexuals on his Twitter account (since renamed in her complaint Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the engineers behind the letter.
She also explains that she had to regularly read the Twitter account of the billionaire (who bought the social network at the end of 2022), since he regularly publishes information about SpaceX there.
She also says she received a performance review that deemed her “too emotional” and asked her to “show more humility” after raising concerns with her boss about a male colleague who took credit for his work.
In January, SpaceX filed a complaint against the American labor inspectorate, the NLRB, to try to prevent it from hearing these former employees. The company claims that the operation of this federal agency is unconstitutional and that the hearing process violates the group’s right to a jury trial.
An NLRB hearing of the plaintiffs is expected to take place in early March.
Tesla, another flagship of Elon Musk, has been the subject of accusations of racism and sexual harassment on its Californian site.
“After receiving hundreds of complaints from workers, we found evidence of racial segregation at the Fremont factory,” Kevin Kish, director of the CRD, declared in February 2022.