Elon Musk has been making the news these days for all things legal after the euphoric praise for taking over Twitter. While he was busy revamping Twitter, he neglected his other ventures, including Tesla. The EV company was facing many troubles, including plummeting stock value, technical complaints from the audience, and several lawsuits.
Recently, Elon Musk’s Tesla got a clean chit out of two lawsuits. One lawsuit was about Musk’s tweet about taking Tesla private in 2018. He ensured that he had secured funding to take Tesla private for $420 per share. The shareholders asked for monetary compensation after they lost money. But the jury did not hold Musk liable. He also won a lawsuit related to the autopilot crash in 2018 while trying the meta version of the software. But the company has been engulfed in lawsuits where employees have accused the company of racism.
Elon Musk-Led Tesla Is Facing A Class-Action Lawsuit For The Racist Environment In The Company
Marcus Vaughn, a former assembly line staffer at Tesla Inc., filed a class-action lawsuit in 2017 along with more than 100 African American workers. The Fremont workers filed the lawsuit after they felt unsafe in the factory and after Musk’s failure to avoid such instances of racial discrimination.
The Tesla owner failed to take any substantial corrective action and allegedly fired the Black workers who complained.
Marcus issued another filing on June 5, 2023, where he stated that a class-action lawsuit will be the only deterrent to prevent “a pattern and practice of race discrimination.”
The workers have also claimed that the manufacturing plant has racial graffiti and that they have to hear racial slurs like the “n-word,” “boy,” and “monkey.” Now, Vaughn has gotten more than 240 workers on board to give sworn statements.
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California Court Awarded $3.2 Million To A Black Employee In Tesla Racial Harassment Case
Owen Diaz filed a case against Tesla in 2021 for not addressing the hostile workplace environment, violating California law. The jury decided to award $7 million in damages for emotional stress and a whopping $130 million in punitive damages. But, in 2022, the US district judge deemed the amount excessive.
In April 2023, a federal jury decided that Tesla must pay Owen Diaz $3.2 million in punitive damages. The jury ruled that Tesla did not prevent or take constructive actions to prevent racial harassment at its assembly plant in California. It also awarded $175,000 in emotional damages.
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