California accuses Tesla of alleged discrimination at plant
ABC News
California regulators have sued electric car maker Tesla Inc. They allege the company has been discriminating against Black employees who have been likened to monkeys and slaves at the San Francisco Bay Area factory where most of its vehicles are made
SAN RAMON, Calif. -- California regulators have sued Tesla Inc. alleging the electric car maker has been discriminating 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 explosive lawsuit seems likely to widen a rift between Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person, and the state where he launched the company. Tesla is now worth more than $900 billion, less than 20 years after Musk set out to transform the auto industry.
Musk moved Tesla's headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, last year after publicly feuding with California officials over whether Tesla's factory should remain shut down during the spring of 2020 while the coronavirus pandemic was still in its early stages.
The 39-page lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, 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."
