Elon Musk’s Creepy Workplace Is Techno-Feudalism In Action
- by The Nation
- Jun 14, 2024
- 0 Comments
- 0 Likes Flag 0 Of 5
Elon Musk speaks at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on May 6, 2024.
(Apu Gomes / Getty Images)
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders voted to grant company CEO Elon Musk a pay package of roughly $56 billion—a staggering bounty that was all the more remarkable because it came just two days after The Wall Street Journal released a blockbuster report alleging a pattern of workplace sexual harassment that would, in a more just world, render the tech magnate unemployable. There is a startling discrepancy between Musk’s unprecedentedly lavish compensation and the sordid behavior reported by not just the Journal but also other news outlets. This gulf illustrates the aura of invincibility that Musk enjoys as one of the world’s richest men. The allegations also clarify Musk’s recent political shift as the onetime supporter of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden increasingly aligns himself with Trumpism. As Trump notoriously said about sexual assault in the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” Musk and other Silicon Valley plutocrats increasingly see themselves as not just businessmen but stars, which apparently means they too feel that they do “can do anything.” This creates a natural affinity for Trumpian politics and its promise of rich-guy impunity.
The latest allegations against Musk are merely the most recent manifestation of a recurring problem. In May, 2022, Business Insider reported,
SpaceX, the aerospace firm founded by Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018…. The attendant worked as a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis for SpaceX’s corporate jet fleet. She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage.
Despite the settlement, Musk denies any wrongdoing in this case and has even made the claim, which is contradicted by evidence, that he didn’t use flight attendants on his SpaceX jets.
The Wall Street Journal report, written by Joe Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar, revisits the flight attendant’s story and also documents three other cases. The most in-depth one involves a recent college grad who had previously been an intern and who was hired by Musk in 2017. According to the newspaper, Musk,
texted her often and invited her to come over to his Los Angeles mansion at night on multiple occasions. Sometimes she accepted his invitations, but friends said she told them at the time that his behavior made her job harder. She eventually moved off Musk’s executive team, according to friends she told and to people familiar with her time at SpaceX. The woman left the company in 2019.
This woman seems to have made some sort of private settlement with Musk, because she issued a statement via her lawyers, who also work for Musk, disputing some of the Journal’s reporting.
The two other incidents described in the Journal are:
Another woman who left the company in 2013 alleged in exit negotiations with SpaceX human resources and legal executives that Musk had asked her to have his babies.
Current Issue
Please first to comment
Related Post
Stay Connected
Tweets by elonmuskTo get the latest tweets please make sure you are logged in on X on this browser.
Sponsored
Popular Post
Tesla: Buy This Dip, Energy Growth And Margin Recovery Are Vastly Underappreciated
28 ViewsJul 29 ,2024