SpaceX and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, are being sued by eight former employees who claim they were fired after demanding the company address a toxic work culture they say is rife with sexual harassment and discrimination.
Former employees say Musk encouraged an unfriendly work environment at the spacecraft company with his social media posts, where he often announced important company news including launch dates and achievements, but mixed in memes and jokes. filled with sexual undertones.
In the complaint, former SpaceX engineers say the troubling posts weren’t just private comments from its billionaire CEO. SpaceX told employees to consider Musk’s posts on X as official statements and news from the company.
“There was no separation [Elon] Musk’s statements and the company’s statements,” said Anne Shaver, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. “When employees raised concerns, they were told, ‘There’s nothing we can do. SpaceX is Elon and Elon is SpaceX.’
A representative for SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Musk, who owns SpaceX and X, is a prolific user of the social media site formerly known as Twitter. He is known for his sometimes controversial posts, attacking politicians, personal opponents and people he disagrees with.
In one post highlighted in the complaint, Musk tweeted to Chad Hurley, the former CEO of YouTube, “if you touch my venus you can have a horse.”
On another occasion, he posted a photo of Bill Gates with a pregnant stomach with the message, “in case you need to lose a quick head.” In a response to SpaceX’s competitors, he once tweeted that they “[c]I don’t take it (into orbit) lol.”
In one post, he said he was considering making a university in Texas similar to MIT and proposed calling it “TITS.”
Online behavior, the suit alleges, seeped into everyday work at SpaceX.
“Employees could not avoid seeing or hearing about them,” the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, says. “Musk’s remarks quickly circulated via email, team channels and/or word of mouth and were widely discussed.”
The lawsuit alleges that SpaceX’s handbook instructs employees to view Musk’s social media feed on X as “a source of approved company news” and encourages employees to share it publicly.
Musk’s social media activity also had another consequence, the lawsuit states: “Musk’s conduct in interjecting into the workplace this juvenile, grotesque sex joke had the entirely predictable and intentional result of encouraging other employees to to engage in similar conduct”.
At SpaceX’s offices in Hawthorne, the suit’s claims, company meetings and employees mimicked Musk’s humor.
In meetings, the lawsuit alleges, senior engineers referred to mechanical parts as “chodes” and “schlongs.” A camera that was placed on the bottom of a second-stage Falcon rocket was referred to as the “Top Camera” and a structure used by astronauts to transfer from SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station was called the “Tunnel of Fun”. a euphemism for anal sex.
Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the former employees who sued SpaceX, claimed that a lead engineer in December 2021 saw a graph on her computer that pointed downward. The engineer referred to the penis and asked, “How can we raise it, up, up?”
Musk, who is ranked by Forbes as one of the richest people on the planet, has long faced allegations of troubled leadership, including claims of retaliation against those who speak out against him.
When he bought Twitter in 2022, Musk fired a large number of the social media platform’s employees, including those who had criticized him, the New York Times reported.
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He has also faced allegations of sexual harassment.
Business Insider reported in 2022 that a SpaceX flight attendant was paid $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim alleging that Musk exposed himself to her and offered to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage.
On Tuesday, the day the lawsuit was filed, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had a sexual relationship with a SpaceX intern more than 20 years his junior.
The eight employees — four women and four men — were fired in 2022 under Musk, the complaint says, after they drafted an internal letter asking SpaceX executives to denounce Musk’s social media posts.
The letter cited allegations against Musk as well as disturbing social media posts that included “subtle sexual harassment” and “harassment.” He also urged executives to “condemn Elon’s harmful behavior on Twitter.”
According to the complaint, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, Holland-Thielen and Tom Moline were told to “stop the flood of employees. [sic] communication channels” after they shared the letter on June 15, 2022.
That same day, the lawsuit alleges, Musk asked an HR representative to fly from Texas to Hawthorne and then ordered officials to fire Holland-Thielen and Moline.
SpaceX continued to investigate the authors of the letter and those involved in drafting the document, the lawsuit says, and fired more employees as a result.
“Musk thinks he’s above the law,” said Laurie Burgess, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. “Eight of our brave clients stood up to him and were fired for it. We look forward to holding Musk accountable for his actions in court.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
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