Eight former SpaceX engineers filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk on Wednesday, accusing the CEO of sexual harassment and retaliation. The same group of fired employees also filed complaints with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) about alleged retaliation by SpaceX. Bloomberg first informed about the lawsuit.
“Musk knowingly and deliberately created an unwanted hostile work environment based on his conduct of introducing vile sexual photographs, memes, and comments that degraded women and/or the LGBTQ+ community into the workplace,” the eight former employees wrote in Wednesday's presentation.
The former SpaceX engineers said that some of them were harassed by other co-workers who “imitated Musk's posts,” in an alleged example of mob harassment under the influence of their superior's behavior. The plaintiffs wrote that this “created a tremendously uncomfortable hostile work environment.”
The group worked together on an open letter in 2022, highlighting the Tesla founder's allegedly problematic behavior. They say they were fired in retaliation for that essay.
According Bloomberg, the document says that former SpaceX engineers have reason to believe that Musk made the decision to fire them in retaliation for their letter. The complaint claims that when a SpaceX human resources official suggested the company conduct a formal investigation before taking any decisive action, Musk responded, “I don't care, fire them.”
The engineers' case before the NLRB has been stalled by an appeals court injunction even though the board agreed that SpaceX unlawfully retaliated against them. SpaceX sued the agency in January, calling its structure “unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit follows a report on Tuesday detailing allegations that Musk had sexual relations with two female employees and asked a third to have his babies.
