Former SpaceX employees sue Elon Musk for permitting "work environment rife with sexual harassment"

A group of eight former SpaceX engineers filed a lawsuit this Wednesday before a state court in Los Angeles (United States) in which they accuse the aerospace company and its CEO, Elon Musk, of sexual harassment and discrimination based on sex against their employees, according to a story broken by The Wall Street Journal.

The lawsuit specifically alleges claims of hostile work environment, retaliation, failure to prevent harassment, gender discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, and wrongful termination, and seeks declarative, compensatory, and injunctive relief.

In addition, they claim to have suffered retaliation by the company after denouncing a “sexist culture” that Musk allegedly promoted and to have been fired after this, in 2022, in an unfair manner violating California legislation, details the lawsuit collected this Wednesday by the media. from USA

The lawsuit, filed by four men and four women, alleges that the CEO posted sexual photographs and degrading comments about his workers.

Filing this suit marks an important milestone in our quest for justice, for holding leadership accountable, and for implementing responsible changes in workplace policies for our colleagues at SpaceX who continue to toil in a hostile work environment,” said plaintiff Paige Holland-Thielen in a statement released by her law firm. “We hope that this lawsuit encourages our colleagues to stay strong and to keep fighting for a better workplace.”

Other plaintiffs also accused Musk of engaging in “shameful” management practices, citing alleged episodes of sexual harassment and discrimination that the company's female engineers “regularly” suffered, and whose complaints had been ignored on several occasions.

Likewise, according to the eight former employees, they also unsuccessfully urged the rest of the company's executives to disavow other sexist comments that the CEO had then issued on their social networks.

The former workers are requesting financial compensation in the form of damages, the amount of which was not specified, and an order prohibiting SpaceX from continuing with this “illegal” layoff formula.

Anne Shaver, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a statement that the aerospace company’s management “knowingly permitted and fostered a work environment rife with sexual harassment.”

“To have been terminated for protesting SpaceX’s utter failure to take basic measures to prevent sexual harassment is patently retaliatory, wrong and actionable,” the statement continued.

For its part, SpaceX has denied having engaged in this course of action, ensuring that the letter they wrote was harmful and that the former employees were legally fired for violating company policies.

The eight engineers had already filed a complaint with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board in January, arguing that their dismissals violated their rights, protected by the country's employment legislation.

At SpaceX's request, a U.S. appeals court later stayed the Labor Relations Board's lawsuit until the one brought by the former employees is resolved.