Black workers at a Tesla factory have alleged they experienced racist taunting, racial discrimination and retaliation for complaining. These incidents are the basis for a new federal lawsuit filed against the electric car manufacturer by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the allegations are the latest accusations of discrimination against billionaire Elon Musk and his companies.
The EEOC filed a federal lawsuit against Tesla on Sept. 28, detailing a culture of racism at the company’s factory in Fremont, California. The Commission claims the treatment of these workers violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the suit, Black workers at the Fremont plant faced persistent racism beginning in 2015. The workers faced other employees calling them the N-word and various other racial slurs. Additionally, “Black employees regularly encountered graffiti, including variations of the N-word, swastikas, threats, and nooses” in numerous spaces throughout the facility. Those who complained faced “various forms of retaliation, including terminations, changes in job duties, transfers, and other adverse employment actions.”
The EEOC lawsuit is the latest in a long string of complaints of racism against the Fremont plant. In 2021, Owen Diaz, a Black worker at the Tesla factory in Fremont, was initially awarded nearly $137 million in a lawsuit for experiencing daily racial abuse in an atmosphere he claimed was “straight from the Jim Crow era”; a federal jury later reduced Diaz’s judgment to $3.2 million. In 2022, California’s Department of Fair Employment sued the Fremont plant, alleging the Tesla factory was “a racially segregated workplace where Black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against,” among other allegations.
Musk and his companies have faced numerous allegations of racism, discrimination and bias that have grown in recent years. Six women sued Tesla in 2021, claiming they experienced sexual harassment at the Fremont plant and other locations. The Justice Department sued Musk’s SpaceX company earlier this year for illegally refusing to hire refugees and asylum seekers. After Musk bought the social media platform Twitter, which he rebranded as X, numerous users and watchdog organizations have complained his changes to the site have led to a proliferation of hate speech on the platform.
As Musk and his legal team prepare to fight these latest allegations, the EEOC lawsuit adds to an increasingly negative picture of the billionaire’s business empire. With a growing reputation for bias, Musk faces renewed pressure to make significant changes to the cultures of his companies.
