SpaceX probed for claims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination

One of the complainants, Paig Holland-Thielen, now reveals in a Bloomberg interview: ‘I was left out of so many meetings that I was supposed to be in; I was left out of so many decisions that were my decision to make. I was forgotten on projects; I was forgotten in planning.’

On one occasion, upon approaching a manager to divulge details of a colleague’s ‘inappropriate behaviour,’ said manager is accused of pointing at a declining data graph on their computer and making a sexual joke about getting it ‘up, up, up.’ Naturally, Holland-Thielen felt exasperated.

Another incident in the lawsuit states that a human resources exec found details of Musk’s alleged sexual misconduct with the SpaceX cabin crew member funny, and said words to the effect of: ‘I’ve never been sexually harassed. I must not be hot enough.’

‘Basically anything that would make a freshman frat-initiative laugh was fair game in large parts of the company,’ said Tom Moline, one of the engineers fired in 2022.

As per the injunction, SpaceX now has 30 days to respond to the CCRD before it furthers its own investigation into the company’s practices. SpaceX representatives, meanwhile, argue that its work for the US government should annul it from the burden of a labour board trial.

The legal spat ‘distracts from its important missions, including launching satellites critical to US defense and intelligence agencies and flying NASA astronauts to space,’ it asserts.

Nonetheless, giving the regularity and escalating nature of the claims being made, it goes without saying that all accusations need to be thoroughly investigated. Hopefully, we’ll see that happen.