Featured Image Credit: Daniel Oberhaus (2018) via Flickr, SpaceX
Topics: World News, Real Life, no article matching
Topics: World News, Real Life, no article matching
Content Warning: This article discusses topics which some readers may find upsetting - discretion is advised.
It’s been alleged that SpaceX, the spacecraft engineering company founded by Elon Musk, paid out $250,000 to a flight attendant to settle a sexual misconduct claim raised against Musk in 2018.
This report comes from Insider, who claim that a member of the cabin crew for SpaceX’s corporate jet fleet accused Musk of rubbing her leg without her consent, exposing his erect penis to her, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage.
Reportedly, the incident took place in 2016, and a friend of the flight attendant has signed a declaration in support of the claim. The declaration alleges that after taking her job, the attendant was encouraged to get licensed as a masseuse, so that she could give massages to Musk. It was then apparently during a “full body massage”, which took place in a private cabin, that Musk propositioned her.
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“He whipped out his penis, it was erect,” the attendant’s friend said in an interview with Insider. “And he started propositioning her, like he touched her thigh and told her he would buy her a horse. And he basically tried to bribe her to perform some sort of sexual favour.”
Allegedly, the flight attendant turned down Musk’s proposition, but later felt as if she was facing punishment for doing so. “She figured things could just go back to normal and she would pretend like nothing happened,” her friend told Insider. “However, she started to feel as if she was receiving some sort of retaliation where her shifts were cut back, and she was starting to feel really stressed.”
After she became more certain that refusing the proposition had affected her opportunities at the company, in 2018 the attendant reportedly hired a lawyer and complained to HR about the incident. The complaint was then resolved when she, Musk, and SpaceX entered into a severance agreement, which granted the attendant $250,000 so long as she promised not to sue over the claims.
When asked for comment, Musk apparently told Insider that there’s “a lot more to this story”, and that “if I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light”.
The attendant’s friend encourages anyone else who has been “mistreated” by Musk to tell their stories, too: “I would like for them to come forward. I would like for the truth to be revealed.”