Years ago, SpaceX founder Elon Musk allegedly exposed himself to a SpaceX flight attendant before offering her a strange quid pro quo — he would give her a horse if she gave him an erotic massage.
The company then reportedly paid the woman $250,000 to settle a 2018 sexual misconduct claim against Musk.
In 2022, Musk denied the accusation and told Business Insider, which first reported the allegation: “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.”
Now, two years later, more allegations involving Musk’s behavior in his relationships have emerged.
The billionaire had relationships with a number of female employees at SpaceX, and pressed others for sexual favors, according to a new Wall Street Journal report, based on interviews with more than 48 sources as well as emails, texts, and records.
Musk’s alleged string of sexual encounters, or requested ones, with women who worked for him are nothing short of salacious.
Musk, the world’s second richest person, had a relationship with a summer intern before giving her a role, years later, on his executive staff. He asked another woman to have his children, and engaged in a month-long sexual relationship with a woman that he directly supervised in 2014, the Journal reported.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, pushed back on the Journal’s report, telling the outlet that its reporting was filled with “untruths, mischaracterizations, and revisionist history” which “paint a completely misleading narrative.”
Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X Holdings Corp., speaks at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel,on May 6, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.
Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X Holdings Corp., speaks at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel,on May 6, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California (Getty Images)
She added: “Elon is one of the best humans I know.”
The company investigates all sexual harassment complaints and acts on them accordingly, Shotwell told the outlet.
Musk, who has 11 children, reportedly asked a female employee to have his babies on more than one occasion, the Journal reported. She rejected his offer but stayed in her role. Musk, though, apparently didn’t make it easy for her to stay; declining to give her a raise and complaining about her work, the Journal wrote.
The woman eventually left the company in 2013 with an exit package of cash and stock valued at more than $1m, the outlet said.
Musk also allegedly had a sexual relationship with a college student who was interning for a summer at SpaceX in the early 2010s, the Journal reported. The engineering intern interacted with the founder after pitching ideas to improve the company. He was more than 20 years her senior, according to the report.
A year after her internship, the billionaire reportedly flew her to Sicily. Her travels allegedly included a first-class trip to London followed by a private jet to Italy, where he was attending a Google-sponsored conference. The relationship ended some time after the international meet-up.
But years later, in 2017, Musk contacted the ex-intern, offering her a position on his executive staff. She took the job, the Journal wrote, and moved from New York to California.
Despite their relationship having ended, Musk invited her for drinks after she got to California. There, he reportedly hit on the former intern, and touched her breast.
The outlet obtained affidavits signed by the woman. In them, she said that she did not have a relationship with Musk while she was employed at SpaceX from 2017 to 2019. She wrote: “Elon tried to rekindle our relationship prior to my employment, and I rejected the advance. While there was some initial awkwardness, it was nothing out of the ordinary after a rejection.”
However, her conversations with friends seemed to tell a different story. The outlet spoke to the former intern’s friends, who recalled her saying that she wasn’t enjoying her time at SpaceX; she sometimes hid in the company’s bathroom; that she suffered from “imposter syndrome”; and that she struggled to get her colleagues to take her ideas seriously.
The former intern traveled to the billionaire’s home frequently and was the recipient of many texts from Musks, friends told the outlet. In one text conversation, seen by the Journal, Musk repeatedly asked the woman to come over.
When she didn’t reply, he texted three subsequent times before allegedly writing: “Probably best if we don’t see each other.” The next morning, texts showed that the woman responded with an apology for not getting back to him because she had been asleep.
Her lawyers told the Journal that the “break up” part of Musk’s text “was not referring to a romantic relationship.”
However a friend of the woman told the Journal that she suffers from mild social anxiety “resulting from imposter syndrome” which “definitely makes this job harder… And that’s definitely exacerbated by Elon’s behavior.”
Eventually, the former intern requested to move off Musk’s executive team and into another role. She told friends that her interactions with the founder had grown awkward. In 2019, she left the company, the outlet reported.
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