(San Francisco) Eight former SpaceX engineers filed a complaint Wednesday against the aerospace company and its boss, Elon Musk, for having been unfairly dismissed, after accusing the company of tolerating sexual harassment and certain discrimination against women.
These four men and four women assure that the controversial American billionaire, also boss of Tesla and X, “personally ordered” their dismissal in 2022, after they prepared an open letter denouncing his inappropriate comments on social networks.
The complaint, filed in a Los Angeles court, denounces “an omnipresent sexist culture within SpaceX”, to the detriment of women and LGBT+ people.
As a boss, Mr. Musk “runs his company in the Dark Ages—treating women like sex objects to be judged by their bra size, bombarding the workplace with lewd sexual banter,” details the complaint.
“Being fired for protesting SpaceX’s complete failure to take basic steps to prevent sexual harassment is clearly retaliatory, reprehensible and actionable,” said Anne Shaver. , one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The ex-employees in question have already initiated procedures which have been escalated to the American labor inspectorate, the NLRB.
They described a company where sexual comments and other forms of harassment are tolerated, where women are paid less than men for equal work, and more rarely promoted. And where the inappropriate humor used online by Elon Musk is regularly imitated by employees.
In January, SpaceX filed a complaint against the NLRB, to try to prevent it from hearing its 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.
Contacted by AFP on Wednesday, SpaceX did not immediately react.
The filing of this new complaint coincides with the publication of an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, which questions Elon Musk’s relationship with women within his aerospace company.
The American daily cites several problematic cases, including that of a former employee who claims that the billionaire exhibited himself in front of her in 2016 and offered to give him a horse in exchange for sex.
The boss also allegedly asked another employee, who left the company in 2013, to bear his children.
Tesla, another flagship of Elon Musk, has been the subject of accusations of racism and sexual harassment on its Californian site.