A report says that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Inc. CEO Elon Musk’s company SpaceX paid $250,000 to settle sexual harassment claims by a flight attendant on a private jet. This comes as Musk plans to take over Twitter (NYSE: TWTR).
Here is an overview of some of the most important legal questions raised by the claims, which Business Insider published on Thursday. Musk has said that the claims are false.
What Do People Say About Muşk?
Business Insider reported on Thursday that SpaceX paid $250,000 in 2018 to settle a claim by an unnamed private jet flight attendant who said that Musk exposed himself to her. Someone who didn’t want to be named said in the article that she knew the flight attendant. The article says that the friend gave a statement as part of a private settlement process.
Musk said in tweets on Thursday that the claims were “completely false” and that the alleged exposure “never happened.” The Business Insider report could not be confirmed by Reuters on its own.
Has Musk been sued or sued for sexual harassment in the past?
No.There are no other claims of harassment against Musk that are known to the public.
ARE MUSK’S COMPANIES FACING SEXUAL HARASSMENT OR OTHER EMPLOYMENT LAWSUITS?
Tesla has been accused of discriminating against people of different sexes and races. This includes a race bias class-action lawsuit in California state court and a lawsuit by California’s Department of Fair Housing and Employment, which says that race discrimination is common.
At least seven women have sued Tesla since the end of last year for sexual harassment and discrimination. These lawsuits are just starting out.
Tesla has denied doing anything wrong and said it has put in place rules to prevent and punish wrongdoing at work.
Tesla is not the only company in the U.S. with these kinds of legal problems. Most companies with a lot of employees have to deal with claims and lawsuits related to employment.
Even though some female employees have said things about sexual harassment in the media and online, SpaceX is not being sued for it. For example, in December, a former SpaceX engineer wrote in a blog post that the company was “rife with sexism” and that her complaints of sexual harassment had been ignored.
SpaceX has said that it thoroughly looks into complaints of harassment and discrimination and takes action when a company policy is broken.
Is Musk one of the companies that are being sued in the lawsuits?
No. Musk is not a defendant in any of the lawsuits. But in a number of pending cases of race discrimination and sexual harassment, employees have accused him and other senior company leaders of not caring about wrongdoing and letting hostile work environments grow.
Where do the suits stand, and how have the companies responded to them?
A federal judge in April gave $15 million to a black Tesla factory worker who said coworkers at a Fremont, California, factory called him racial slurs and wrote racist graffiti on his walls. Tesla has tried to stop the California agency from suing it, saying that it did not do enough research before suing.
A California judge is expected to decide soon on Tesla’s request to send to arbitration one of the sexual harassment lawsuits against Tesla. The judge is in charge of five similar cases, and his decision could affect all of them.
IF MUSK DID MAKE A DEAL WITH THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT, SHOULD HE HAVE TOLD SPACEX’S BOARD ABOUT IT?
Boards have to make sure that companies follow the law, which includes laws that say it’s wrong to treat people differently because of their gender. Even though board members aren’t expected to know about every rule-breaking claim, Ann Lipton of Tulane Law School says that they should have ways to find out about claims of rule-breaking directly against the CEO.
Reuters was not able to find out on its own where the money came from that was used to pay the alleged victim in the SpaceX case.
Would Tesla’s board know of the settlement?
Three people on the board of SpaceX in 2016 were also on the board of Tesla at the same time. But they have a duty to keep information they learn as directors secret, so they might not have told the Tesla board about it. Reuters couldn’t find out if these board members told anyone about the settlement.
Is there a reason for Twitter to investigate something?
Lipton said that the answer is “a clear “no.” Musk owns a lot of Twitter shares and has tried to buy the company, but she said that when a company is sold for cash, the board’s “only responsibility is to get the highest price for shareholders.”