SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a post-launch news conference inside the Press Site Auditorium at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 30, 2020, following the launch of the agency’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station.
NASA / Kim Shifflet
SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in a tweet late on Thursday that “wild allegations” against him were not true.
He did not explain what the allegations were. But his response came after a Business Insider report on Thursday said the aerospace company had cut off ফ্ল 250,000 to a flight attendant who accused the billionaire of sexual misconduct.
The report, citing interviews and documents obtained by Insider, said the woman claimed she exposed her erect penis while giving a massage to the mask, touched his thighs without his consent and offered to buy him a horse if he had sex.
Musk tweeted, without directly mentioning the report, that “for the record, these wild allegations are completely untrue.”
“Attacks against me should be viewed from a political point of view – this is their ideal (hateful) playbook,” he tweeted.
Insider reported that the alleged incident took place in Mask’s room on a SpaceX jet on a flight to London in late 2016, when the world’s richest man asked him to give a “full body massage”.
According to the outlet, Musk told Insider “there’s more to this story” because he asked the publication for more time to respond to the article’s claim.
“If I had been involved in sexual harassment, it would have been less likely for the first time in my entire 30-year career,” Mask Insider wrote. He added that his article was a “politically motivated hit piece,” the outlet reported.
Insider reported that Mask had removed the publication deadline after requesting more time to respond, but he did not comment further on the allegations.
“I’m not going to comment on any settlement agreement,” Insider was quoted as saying by Christopher Cardsey, vice president of legal affairs at SpaceX.
CNBC contacted SpaceX for comment.
The insider report comes at a time when Tesla’s main mask is being used to buy social media giant Twitter.
The allegations, reported Thursday, are detailed in an announcement signed by a friend of the flight attendant.
According to Insider, the announcement was made in support of a complaint filed by the woman’s lawyer with SpaceX’s human resources department in 2018 after her job opportunities at the company were reduced after she refused to have sex with Musk.
The friend who spoke to Insider or the woman who refused to be interviewed by the publication was not identified by name in the article. The flight attendant signed a non-disclosure agreement with SpaceX as part of its settlement, the report said.
Internal reports say the friend said the flight attendant told him the story about the mask shortly after the incident.
And the outlet reported that the friend said he decided to disclose the woman’s complaint without asking the flight attendant because he felt compelled to file a lawsuit against the mask as a person surviving sexual harassment.
Insider reported that the flight attendant’s complaint to SpaceX’s HR department “was quickly resolved after a session with a mediator who was present in person.”
The news outlet said Musk, SpaceX and the flight attendant entered into an agreement in November 2018 to pay the woman $ 250,000 in exchange for a promise not to file a lawsuit related to her claim.
Read the full insider report here.
– CNBC’s Wiesen Tan And and Michael Schitz Contribute to this report.
