A Tesla shareholder has sued the electric car maker, CEO Elon Musk and the company’s board, alleging a “toxic workplace culture,” it was first reported by Reuters.
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges Tesla leadership failed to address workplace complaints of discrimination and harassment.
"Tesla has created a toxic workplace culture grounded in racist and sexist abuse and discrimination against its own employees," the complainant, Solomon Chau, wrote in the lawsuit.
Chau went on to say that the culture at Tesla has caused harm to his financial investment and has irreparably damaged the company’s reputation.
Neither Tesla board members nor Musk have publicly commented on the lawsuit.
This is not the first time that Tesla, which is now headquartered in Austin, Texas, has been accused of discrimination. In February, California regulators sued Tesla Inc. alleging it discriminated against Black employees who have been likened to monkeys and slaves at the San Francisco Bay Area factory where most of its trendy vehicles are made.
The earlier, 39-page lawsuit frames Tesla’s move to Texas as an attempt to evade accountability for turning “a blind eye to years of complaints from Black workers who protest commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line.”
In response to the complaints, the California lawsuit alleges Musk has told workers to be “thick-skinned” about racial harassment, contributing to the culture that’s slow to clean up racist graffiti and other hateful symbols scrawled around the factory.
Before news of the California lawsuit broke, Tesla preemptively posted a statement on its website lashing out at what it called an “unfair and counterproductive” lawsuit.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.