United States: Eight former SpaceX engineers have filed a lawsuit claiming they were fired for raising concerns about how female employees were treated at the company. They are also accusing CEO Elon Musk of being involved in their dismissal.
The former workers claimed in a lawsuit filed in California on Wednesday that Musk personally ordered their dismissal after they distributed a letter within SpaceX expressing concerns regarding the billionaire’s lewd remarks on social media.
According to the lawsuit, Musk is in charge of a “‘Animal House’ environment” and a “pervasively sexist culture” in which women are judged based only on the size of their bras and subjected to constant sexual jokes.
The lawsuit makes reference to several statements made by Musk on his social media site X, including one in which he wrote, “If you touch my wiener, you can have a horse,” to former YouTube CEO Chad Hurley.
“SpaceX 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,” Anne B Shaver, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement released by her lawyers that the suit was an “important milestone in our quest for justice.”
“We hope that this lawsuit encourages our colleagues to stay strong and to keep fighting for a better workplace,” she said.
The former workers are asking for an injunction stopping SpaceX from engaging in illegal activity going forward, as well as unspecified compensatory and punitive penalties. A request for a response from SpaceX was not immediately answered.
The former workers accused the business of breaking US labour laws in a case they had previously filed with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Last month, the NLRB informed a federal judge in Texas that it would put on hold its legal action against SpaceX in order to hasten the resolution of the company’s lawsuit, which alleges that the US Constitution is violated by the agency’s policies and organizational structure.
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