In the report, published Thursday, Insider alleged SpaceX paid $250,000 in severance to a flight attendant who worked on SpaceX corporate jets after she made a sexual misconduct claim against Musk, the company’s founder and CEO, in 2018.
Citing a declaration from a friend of the flight attendant, neither of whom were identified, Insider reported the flight attendant accused Musk of asking her to give him a massage in a private room on an airplane in 2016. Once she was in the room, the declaration stated, Musk “exposed his genitals,” “touched her” and “offered to buy her a horse if she would ‘do more,’ " Insider reported.
Reps for Musk and SpaceX did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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“If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light,” he told the outlet.
Elon Musk.PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP/Getty
Additionally, Insider reported SpaceX vice president of legal Christopher Cardaci told them, “I’m not going to comment on any settlement agreements.”
Elon Musk.
In a series of Twitter posts, Musk — who said last week that his deal to buy the social media platform for $44 billion wason hold— continued to address the scandal.
“For the record, those wild accusations are utterly untrue,” hewrotein one thread, without specifying which accusations he was referring to.
Inanother message, Musk claimed “the attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens,” going on to allege the timing purposefully coincided with his bid to buy Twitter.
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“They began brewing attacks of all kinds as soon as the Twitter acquisition was announced,” hewrotein another tweet. “In my 30 year career, including the entire MeToo era, there’s nothing to report, but, as soon as I say I intend to restore free speech to Twitter &vote Republican, suddenly there is …”
Musk has called the ban a “mistake,” saying that “permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts.”
The New York Timesnoted that around the time Insider reached out to Musk for comment, the billionairetold his followerson Twitter that “political attacks on me will escalate dramatically in coming months.”
John Cook, an Investigations editor at Insider,tweetedon Thursday that “for those interested, we reached out to the principals for comment regarding this story at ~9 a.m. eastern yesterday (Wednesday May 18).”
Musk’s Tweet warning of “political attacks” was shared on May 18 around 12:30 p.m. The Insider story was published the following day.
source: people.com
