Former Tesla employees share 'shocking' racism experiences at Elon Musk's company

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Tech desk
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Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk speaks at an opening ceremony for Tesla China-made Model Y program in Shanghai, China January 7, 2020.—Reuters
Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk speaks at an opening ceremony for Tesla China-made Model Y program in 
Shanghai, China January 7, 2020.—Reuters

  • Tesla employees share their experiences with racism in the company.
  • Tesla has lawsuit against them for operating ‘racially segregated workplace’.
  • The company has previously been sued for racism too.


Former Tesla employees have shared their shocking experiences with racism at the company, The Verge reported.

The Los Angeles Times interviewed three former employees of Tesla. The interview was in the context of the lawsuit that the company is currently facing. Tesla was sued by a civil rights agency for operating ‘racially segregated workplace’.

Although all workers have their own stories and unique experiences, the themes were found to be quite similar. 

For instance, two ex-employees shared that they were blacklisted after they reported racist behaviours. Some of them reported that they were asked to do more work than one man’s job.

One employee shared that even though the harassment stopped after she reported them to HR, months later she realised she was not getting any performance review, raise, or promotion. 

“They were waiting for me to make a mistake,” she said.

Several other workers shared the same sentiments.

The tech giant’s lawyers have denied all the claims and allegations. However, the company has a history with this problem.

Previously, a jury in California ordered Tesla to pay a worker $137 million after no action was taken against the racism he reported. Another employee had to be paid $1 million when his supervisor called him the n-word.