‘Treating women as sexual objects’: Ex-SpaceX employees accuse Elon Musk of encouraging sexist behaviour

Elon Musk is facing some serious allegations from his former SpaceX employees. The billionaire who heads Tesla, SpaceX and X has been accused of encouraging sexist behaviour within the SpaceX. Eight of the SpaceX employees have filed a lawsuit against the Musk and SpaceX alleging that they had been fired soon after they complained the company not taking any action against sexual harassment.  

In the lawsuit, the lawyer of the employees has claimed that Musk runs his company like it is the Dark Ages. The complainants, four men and four women, claimed that when they raised questions against bad conduct, Musk personally ordered their terminations. 

The lawsuit said, “Elon Musk trumpets Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) as the leader to a brave new world of space travel, but runs his company in the dark ages—treating women as sexual objects to be evaluated on their bra size, bombarding the workplace with lewd sexual banter, and offering the reprise to those who challenge the “Animal House” environment that if they don’t like it they can seek employment elsewhere.”

It further added, “The eight Plaintiffs in this case challenged this unlawful conduct in an “Open Letter” to management and, consistent with its “love it or leave it” policy, SpaceX summarily o|| terminated them for daring to seek changes that would simply align the workplace culture with 10| the norms of legal civility as defined by state and federal law. Upon information and belief, Defendant Musk personally ordered the Plaintiffs’ terminations.”

The entire lawsuit lists various tweets by Elon Musk that highlighted his demeanour for women and the LGBTQ+ community. It adds, “Defendant Musk knowingly and purposefully created an unwelcome hostile work environment based upon his conduct of interjecting into the workplace vile sexual photographs, memes, and commentary that demeaned women and/or the LGBTQ+ community.”

The lawsuit claims that these posts and comments made by Musk on a public platform ultimately permeated the workplace and that management took no action to prevent these posts from entering the workplace and took no action to remove them.

The ex-employees claim that they experienced a pervasively sexist culture at SpaceX. The lawsuit highlights the instances where senior engineers at official and technical meetings referred to mechanical parts as “chodes” and “schlongs” (euphemisms for male genitals). Engineers were also accused of applying crude and demeaning names to products in an attempt at humour, often at the expense of women and LGBTQ individuals. 

The lawsuit provided a few examples. The name “Upskirt Camera” was used for a camera on first stage of the Falcon rocket that views the bottom of the second stage. The name “Fun Tunnel,” a euphemism for anal sex, was used to refer to a structure on the Dragon vehicle that astronauts use to transfer to the International Space Station. The term “B-plugs.” a euphemism for anal sex toys, was used to describe for structures on the bottom of Dragon used to manage splashdown loads.

Elon Musk or SpaceX haven’t commented on these allegations publicly.