Several former employees have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment.
A former employee of Musk's company has published allegations of sexual harassment that she reported to human resources, but they did not act on them. Four other former employees of the company are saying they experienced harassment at work, according to a report. Space.com reached out to the company but has not received a response.
"I found my way through an abusive upbringing, leaving home at a young age, subsequent homelessness and sexual assault in college, and eventually got a job at the 'leading engineering company' in the world', wrote engineerAshley Kosak in her essay, which was published on the website Lion I could not find a way to get around the mess at the place that I considered to be so bad that I had to leave.
A gallery of firsts for women in space.
Kosak describes five instances of sexual harassment she experienced and the company's response to her reports. According to the essay, the response included telling her that matters of this nature were too private to discuss with the perpetrators, requesting that she provide a list of proposed solutions to the harassment she experienced, and identifying her name through a complaint form that had been advertised as anonymous. Kosak describes the harassment she saw.
Kosak identifies herself as both a first-generation American and an Asian American and mentions race bias at the company, while focusing on incidents of sexual harassment. Kosak wrote that her experience with sexual harassment began when she was an intern. Evidence shows that people who are marginalized on multiple dimensions are more likely to be harassed.
Kosak spent 2.5 years working for the company, first as a build reliability engineer and then as a mission integration engineer, after completing two eight-month internships at the company. Kosak personally evaluated technical risk for the company's first crewed mission, which sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020.
Lioness is a platform that tells stories about encounters with power. In September, the same website published an essay by 21 current and former employees of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin that painted a picture of a company that was tolerant of sexual harassment.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been criticized for its safety and culture.
All but one of the co-authors remained anonymous, except for the face of the September essay, who worked for Blue Origin's communications department. "Unfortunately, I know that many women have similar experiences with harassment at #SpaceX," wrote Abrams on the day Kosak's essay was published. Over the years, I've heard an incredible amount of disturbing accounts. She is brave for speaking up and shining a light.
Kosak's account of the culture of the company is shared by four former employees. Three of those employees are anonymous, and a fourth filed a lawsuit against the company in 2020 because she was denied a job after reporting harassment.
The president of the company sent an email to employees after they were told of the publication. Shotwell said in the email that a third party would be auditing the company's human resources practices.
"Timely reporting of harassment is key to our maintaining SpaceX as a great place to work; we can't fix what we don't know," Shotwell's email read. The New York Times reported that the email stated that the company would investigate all harassment or discrimination claims and take swift and appropriate action when it was found that the policy was violated.
Kosak wrote that she met with Shotwell, who said she hadn't heard about the harassment Kosak experienced.
In August 2021. The image was taken by Patrick Pleul.
Kosak and the employees who spoke with The Verge believe that the climate at the company reflects Musk's priorities and upper management's priorities.
Kosak wrote that "Elon [Musk] uses engineers as a resource to be mined rather than a team to be led." "Elon makes promises he doesn't hold himself accountable to, shifts the goalpost constantly, unnecessarily strips resources from people who are working themselves to the brink of burnout, and then sends threatening messages to remind them that their efforts will never be adequate."
The essay's subtitle refers to a October Musk message in which he suggested a new university called the Texas Institute of Technology and Science. He deleted more of his profanity on the subject after getting backlash. Musk company, electric car company, is also facing lawsuits.
A Florida Today article published in October, following the Blue Origin allegations, offers a top-level view of sexism and harassment in the space industry and notes that low representation in a workplace can lead to discrimination. NASA's science and engineering staff in 2020 was more than three-quarters men, although companies' demographic data is not available, according to a Florida Today article.
Kosak left the space industry and became an operations program manager at Apple, according to her LinkedIn profile, and it's possible that she left because of sexual harassment.
Follow her on social media: EmailMeghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com Follow us on social media.
