An exclusive report reveals several claims from some female SpaceX employees saying that CEO Elon Musk made advances to them, some of which involved sexual intercourse.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the matter, citing claims from at least two women regarding the tech boss's approach towards female employees.
Career Woman Claims to Have Intercourse With Elon Musk
A former female SpaceX employee claimed that she and Musk had an intimate relationship when she was still an intern and alleged that he was reigniting such a connection while she was moving up the corporate echelon.
The woman, who was 20 years younger than Musk, met the tech billionaire during her college internship at SpaceX. During that time, she pitched ideas directly to Musk to improve the firm and lead it to its many successes, including last week's successful Starship flight test.
She further told her friends that Musk eventually asked her for a date, had sex with him, and was even flown to a resort on the Italian island of Sicily before they ended things, according to documents the Journal reviewed.
Musk later attempted to reconnect with the woman, with mixed results. He made further advances, especially as her career with SpaceX moved forward, but her friends claimed that this only made her job harder.
The woman eventually moved from Musk's executive team and left the firm in 2019.
Lawyers representing the woman and Musk provided the Journal with two affidavits signed by the woman, which prove some of the claims and dispute others. In particular, she denied that her relationship with Musk during her time with SpaceX was romantic, wrongful, or predatory.
The Journal's revelation is the newest in the corporate and legal rows Musk currently faces, including his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a feud against Apple CEO Tim Cook, a potential board coup at Tesla over his $56 billion pay package, and a renewed lawsuit by the Australian eSafety Commissioner against Musk.
Elon Musk's Approach
The woman who allegedly had a sexual relationship with Musk was just one of many people who told friends, family, or SpaceX itself that Musk showed them an unusual amount of attention or obsession.
A female SpaceX flight attendant alleged that Musk exposed himself to her in 2016 and offered to purchase a horse for her in exchange.
Another woman who left the company in 2013 alleged to human resources and legal executives that Musk asked to impregnate her.
A fourth woman who once directly reported to Musk, on the other hand, had a month-long sexual relationship with Musk in 2014, which went wrong. This resulted in her receiving recriminations over text and email and signing an agreement prohibiting her from discussing her work for Musk and what happened.
Business Insider added that former SpaceX executives and employees filed a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in 2022, alleging that the executives who directly report to Musk or were near enough to be influenced by him failed to apply the company's own rules to the CEO in an apparent culture of sexism and harassment.
However, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell said that the allegations the Journal reported do not reflect the company's culture, stressing that such stories were "untruths, mischaracterizations, and revisionist history," which paint a "misleading narrative."
Shotwell additionally claimed that the company fully investigates all harassment complaints and takes appropriate action regarding it.
Meanwhile, Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, also disputed claims that his client was using illegal drugs.
It remains to be seen if there were similar incidents of sexual harassment or grooming recorded in Musk's other companies, such as Tesla, The Boring Company, and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
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