Ex-employees sue Elon Musk for alleged harassment and retaliation

Eight elders SpaceX employees filed a complaint against the company's founder and CEO Elon Musk and his company for allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, unlawful terminations and retaliation.

The eight former SpaceX employees – four women and four men – were all fired in 2022 after writing an open letter criticizing Elon Musk and raising concerns about allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination against women on work place.

The letter, which was signed by at least 400 other employees and presented as an exhibit in the lawsuit, states that “Musk's behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment.” .

It also claims that Elon Musk “runs his company in the Dark Ages – treating women as sexual objects to be judged by their bra size, bombarding the workplace with lewd sexual jokes, and offering recovery from those who challenge the system. Animal House environment who, if they don't like it, can look for work elsewhere.

Following the letter's publication, the former employees claim in the lawsuit that “Musk personally ordered Plaintiff's termination.”

Reuters reports that a series of tweets posted by Elon Musk are also being used as evidence in the trial, including several referencing his penis.

The lawsuit says Musk's conduct fostered a “pervasive sexist culture” at SpaceX, where female engineers were routinely subjected to harassment and sexist comments and their concerns about workplace culture were ignored. Senior engineers, for example, used euphemisms for sexual acts and male genitalia to describe the rocket's components, according to the lawsuit.

“These actions… had the foreseeable and actual result of offending, causing distress and harming the well-being of the plaintiffs in a manner that disrupted their emotional tranquility in the workplace,” the plaintiffs said in the trial.

One of the former SpaceX employees who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Elon Musk, Paige Holland Thielen, spoke to CNN and described what it was like working for the billionaire and his company.