Is the richest man in the world a sexual harasser?
He denies it, but this Thursday a news published by
Business Insider,
an American media specialized in Economy, has put him in the spotlight.
According to this information, the SpaceX rocket launch company, of which he is the founder, owner and head, paid 250,000 dollars (about 237,000 euros at current exchange rates), to a stewardess from the company's corporate plane in exchange for burying the complaint of the harassment he suffered from the tycoon.
The information cites as a source the documents with which that compensation agreement was instructed, including the statement of a friend of the alleged victim and recounts in some detail what happened.
According to
Insider,
the stewardess worked for SpaceX's corporate jet fleet.
She accused Musk of flashing her erect penis, rubbing her leg without consent and offering to give her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage, according to interviews and documents obtained by the publication.
The incident took place in 2016.
Insider has sourced the signed statement from a friend of the flight attendant prepared in support of her lawsuit and other documents, including emails and documentation.
According to the statement, the stewardess confided in her friend that, after accepting the job as a stewardess, she was encouraged to take a masseuse course so she could massage Musk.
It was during one such massage in a private cabin on Musk's Gulfstream G650ER that the incident occurred.
The media outlet contacted Musk to get his version.
The tycoon asked for more time and said there is "much more to this story" which he called "politically motivated."
Insider gave Musk more time, but Musk didn't give his version.
After the news broke Thursday, he posted on Twitter (the company he has agreed to buy for $44 billion): “The attacks on me must be seen through a political lens.
This is your (despicable) standard manual, but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and for your right to freedom of expression.”
The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens – this is their standard (despicable) playbook – but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2022
Later, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla added another tweet in which he noted: "And for the record, these outlandish accusations are totally false."
The news outlet also called SpaceX chief legal officer Christopher Cardaci, who said, "I'm not going to comment on any deals."
The flight attendant told her friend that Musk asked her to come to his room on the plane during a flight to London in late 2016 "for a full-body massage," the statement says.
When she arrived, the assistant found that Musk "was completely naked, except for a sheet that covered the lower half of his body."
During the massage, the statement says, Musk "exposed her genitalia" and then "touched her and offered to buy her a horse if she would 'do more,' meaning performing sexual acts."
The flight attendant declined to comment to Insider.
To her friend, on the other hand, she did give more details.
She “she took his penis out of her, it was erect.
And she started propositioning him, like touching her thigh and telling her that she would buy him a horse.
She basically tried to bribe her into doing some kind of sexual favor for her.”
After that, the stewardess didn't know what to do.
In addition, she began to feel stressed and retaliated against, punished for not having prostituted herself, according to her friend's statement.
Interior of a Gulfstream 650ER, in a company catalog image.
Always according to Insider, in 2018, after becoming convinced that her rejection of Musk's harassment had reduced her opportunities at SpaceX, the stewardess hired a California employment lawyer and sent a complaint to the company's human resources department detailing what happened.
The complaint was quickly resolved after a session with a mediator that Musk attended in person.
The case never made it to court.
In November 2018, Musk, SpaceX and the flight attendant signed a termination agreement that gave the flight attendant a payment of $250,000 in exchange for a commitment not to file a lawsuit and not publicize the matter.
The agreement prohibits the stewardess from even talking about the payment of compensation.
A new law soon after prohibited signing such confidentiality agreements in cases of sexual harassment, discrimination or assault, unless they were initiated by the plaintiff.
