Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. was ordered to pay a former employee about $137 million in compensation for the racial abuse the employee said he experienced at a California factory, according to a Bay Area court’s decision.
Owen Diaz underwent racial harassment and a hostile work environment, a San Francisco jury ruled.
Diaz, who worked as an elevator operator at the Fremont Tesla plant, was taunted daily with racial epithets, including the N-word, from 2015 to 2016, he said.
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While employed, workers created “racist” graffiti and drew swastikas throughout the plant, Diaz said in the lawsuit.
“Tesla’s progressive image was a facade papering over its regressive, demeaning treatment of African-American employees,” the lawsuit stated.
His supervisors failed to prevent the racist mistreatment, Diaz said.
The court awarded Diaz $6.9 million for damages related to emotional distress and an additional $130 million in punitive damages, said Lawrence Organ, a member of the California Civil Rights Law Group and Diaz’s attorney.
“It’s a great thing when one of the richest corporations in America has to have a reckoning of the abhorrent conditions at its factory for Black people,” Organ said.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to Tesla for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
