(KRON) – On Wednesday, eight former SpaceX workers filed a lawsuit against the rocket maker company and its owner, Elon Musk. The lawsuit accuses Musk of overseeing a “pervasively sexist culture” and “‘Animal House’ environment,” with women allegedly evaluated on their bra size and consistently made uncomfortable with sexual references.
Before this suit was filed, the eight SpaceX employees had previously submitted an open letter to SpaceX management challenging “the illegal hostile work environment” endured. The complaint alleges that “Musk personally ordered the Plaintiff’s terminations” after the submission of the letter, Anne B. Shaver, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told KRON4.
“Elon Musk trumpets SpaceX as the leader to a brave new world of space travel, but runs his company in the dark ages,” Shaver said.
The suit alleges that “Musk knowingly and purposefully created an unwelcome, hostile work environment based upon his conduct of interjecting into the workplace vile sexual photographs, memes, and commentary that demeaned women and/or the LGBTQ+ community.”
The suit references several comments made by Musk, mostly on his social platform, X, including a post telling former YouTube CEO Chad Hurley: “If you touch my wiener, you can have a horse.”
Despite being posted on his personal account, the plaintiffs believed Musk “intentionally drew” users to parallelly keep up with his X account when following SpaceX news and updates. According to the suit, the SpaceX company handbook also “references Musk’s account as a source of approved company news that employees could share publicly.”
“Unsurprisingly,” the lawsuit reads, “employees and the public alike perceived Musk’s Twitter feed to be a representation of SpaceX’s culture itself.”
Plaintiffs believe these actions “had the foreseeable and actual result of offending, causing distress, and intruding upon Plaintiffs’ well-being so as to disrupt their emotional tranquility in the workplace,” the suit read.
Wednesday’s lawsuit accuses SpaceX and Musk of retaliation and wrongful termination in violation of California law and further accuses the company of sexual harassment and sex discrimination.
The plaintiffs seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and an order barring SpaceX from continuing to engage in its allegedly unlawful conduct.
Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement released by her lawyers that the suit was an “important milestone in our quest for justice.”
“We hope that this lawsuit encourages our colleagues to stay strong and to keep fighting for a better workplace,” she said.
Nexstar reached out to SpaceX for comment but have not heard back yet.
This isn’t the first time SpaceX and Musk have faced claims of harassment. Back in 2021, former employee Ashley Kosak published an essay titled, “At SpaceX, we’re told we can change the world. I couldn’t, however, stop getting sexually harassed.” Among Kosak’s claims include male colleagues grabbing her body and making other unwanted sexual advances. Five former SpaceX employees echoed Kosak’s experience with their own, with the Verge reporting the former employees said HR did not handle their complaints seriously.
In a statement, Laurie Burgess, an attorney also representing the plaintiffs, said: “Musk thinks he’s above the law. Our eight brave clients stood up to him and were fired for doing so. We look forward to holding Musk accountable for his actions at trial.”