EV giant Tesla Inc TSLA settled a racial discrimination lawsuit with former employee Owen Diaz.
What Happened: The lawsuit was filed by Diaz, a Black man who worked as an elevator operator at Tesla’s Fremont, California factory in 2015. Diaz was represented by Attorney Lawrence Organ of the California Civil Rights Law Group.
“The parties have reached an amicable resolution of their disputes. The terms of the settlement are confidential and we will not have additional comment,” Organ told CNBC while adding that the racial harassment at Tesla’s factory is from “the Jim Crow past.”
In his first trial, a jury awarded Diaz a $137 million payout. Judge William H Orrick later reduced this award to $15 million, following which Diaz and Tesla sought a retrial. A federal jury subsequently ordered Tesla to pay Diaz $3.2 million in April 2023.
Why It Matters: The settlement with Diaz comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk faces widespread criticism for his handling of hate speech on his social media platform X.
Musk was also accused of antisemitism late last year after he backed a post on X that Jewish communities are pushing hatred against whites. Musk later apologized for the anti-semitic comment, which led to several advertisers bowing out of the platform, including Walt Disney and Comcast.
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