The complain also alleges the factory was racially segregated, resulting in the area where Black workers labored to be derided as the “slave ship,” or “the plantation.”īefore news of the lawsuit broke, Tesla preemptively posted a statement on its website lashing out at what it called an “unfair and counterproductive” lawsuit. In response to the complaints, the lawsuit alleges Musk has told workers to be “thick-skinned” about racial harassment, contributing to the culture that’s slow to clean up racist graffiti and other hateful symbols scrawled around the factory.īesides the N-word, other racist language used in the factory include descriptions that likened Black workers to a “porch monkey” and “hood rats” and suggestions that they “go back to Africa,” according to the lawsuit. The 39-page lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, frames Tesla’s move to Texas as an attempt to evade accountability for turning “a blind eye to years of complaints from Black workers who protest commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line.” Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, last year after publicly feuding with California officials over whether Tesla’s factory should remain shut down during the spring of 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic was still in its early stages. Tesla is now worth more than $900 billion, less than 20 years after Musk set out to transform the auto industry. The explosive lawsuit seems likely to widen a rift between Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, and the state where he launched the company.
alleging the electric car maker has been discriminating against Black employees who have been likened to monkeys and slaves at the San Francisco Bay Area factory where most of its trendy vehicles are made.
California regulators have sued Tesla Inc.