Elon Musk’s Tesla faces lawsuits over sexual harassment in its manufacturing plants 

Avatar

Electric Vehicle manufacturing company, Tesla, is facing a new wave of lawsuits after a half-dozen women at its Fremont, California, plant accused the company of fostering a sexual harassment culture.

The six women in a separate suit filed on Tuesday say the sexual harassment is not limited to its plant in Fremont but also other facilities across the United States. 

According to the prosecutors, the company creates a toxic environment where female employees are subjected to lewd comments and catcalls, as well as physically intimate touching and discrimination.

The sexual harassment lawsuit comes only two months after a federal jury in San Francisco ordered Tesla to pay almost $137 million for racial profiling. 

A black elevator operator had sued the company, accusing them of disregarding the racist abuse he experienced while working at its manufacturing plant in Fremont. 

In this fresh lawsuit, the women claimed the sexual harassment has been going on for a long time and that they complained about the harassment to management, but that changed nothing. 

Others claimed that nothing changed and they were afraid to report the harassment to superiors in the facility because they were not only in full knowledge of the abuse but active participants in the same culture.

Several women claimed they tried to defend themselves from harassment by buying baggy garments to keep their coworkers at bay. They claim the work environment is hindering them from progressing in their professions.

Similar occurence At SpaceX

The culture of sexual harrassment is not only rampant in Elon Musk’s Tesla, but there have also been similar complaints coming from the billionaire’s SpaceX business. 

Ashley Kosak, a former mission integration engineer at SpaceX, claims that nothing was done by the corporation after making several complaints about sexual harassment in the workplace. 

She made these allegations in a recent essay where she says she began experiencing sexual harassment a few weeks after starting as an intern in 2017, and has experienced it continually since then.

According to her, she was touched without her permission, gazed at, asked out, messaged on her personal Instagram account, and called at 4 a.m. One coworker even showed up at her home, but nothing was done.

She claims that SpaceX didn’t follow up on her multiple reported instances of sexual harassment, saying “misogyny is rampant” at the company.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Space-x.jpeg

In court records and interviews, many of the women in the Tesla lawsuits drew a clear relationship between the harassment they suffered and the actions of CEO Elon Musk who also runs SpaceX.

Elon Musk, who was awarded Time magazine’s Person of the Year on Monday, is notorious for his outlandish and frequently obscene tweets.

He made several allusions to the number 69, sarcastically titled a fictional institution T.I.T.S., and nicknamed his automobile line “S3XY,” after the Models S, 3, X, and Y.

In response to employee complaints, the corporation has said that it takes sexual harassment charges seriously and does not allow retribution.


Technext Newsletter

Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!

Register for Technext Coinference 2023, the Largest blockchain and DeFi Gathering in Africa.

Technext Newsletter

Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!