‘Bootie call’: Claims Musk asked staff for sex
The SpaceX and Tesla boss asked multiple staff members to have sex with him and asked one to have his babies, it’s been reported.
At Work
Don't miss out on the headlines from At Work. Followed categories will be added to My News.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk is alleged to have had sex with a woman who was an intern at the rocket company, when she was still at university, before hiring her to a senior role years later and trying to embark on a relationship.
The allegation is one of a number about Mr Musk’s advances towards and consensual sexual encounters with staff members which have been published by the US newspaperThe Wall Street Journal.
The paper reported that Mr Musk had asked one woman employed by SpaceX to father his children. Another woman said she reported directly to Mr Musk while having a sexual relationship with him.
News.com.au has contacted SpaceX for comment. The WSJ said Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Musk’s personal fortune is estimated to be worth almost $300 billion. Tesla, the car company which Mr Musk heads, is currently trying to push through a compensation package for him which is worth up to $67 billion. In January, a US judge halted the pay deal saying shareholders were not fully across why he should receive so much compensation.
The issue of sexual relationships between staff is currently in focus.
UK oil giant BP now demands all staff disclose any intimate relationships they have with colleagues after CEO Bernard Looney left the company when it was revealed he’d had several relationships with staff members.
SpaceX has a policy that discourages staff from directly overseeing colleagues they have had a relationship with.
Sex after Star Wars chat
An unnamed woman said she first met Mr Musk when she spent time at the company as an intern in the early 2010s when she was studying engineering.
She approached Mr Musk with thoughts about how the rocket company could be improved. The pair went for a meal and bonded over their love of Star Wars. Later that night they kissed, and eventually had sex, she told friends, reported the WSJ.
A year later, Mr Musk was reported to have invited the woman to meet him at a conference he was attending on the Italian island of Sicily.
Her passport was in another city so Mr Musk arranged for a friend to find the document and bring it to her on a flight.
The former intern was then flown first class to London before a private jet took her to Italy.
Breast touch, repeated texts
In 2017, Mr Musk reportedly offered the women a job at SpaceX trouble shooting issues at the rocket builder.
Mr Musk then allegedly invited her for drinks, made passes at her and at one point touched her breast.
“Oh, I’m so bad. I shouldn’t be doing this,” Mr Musk reportedly then said, according to a friend who had been told of the encounter.
The WSJ said that the woman at the centre of the claims told friends not to talk to the paper.
A letter from the lawyer for the woman, who also represents Mr Musk, demanded she not be in the article, the paper reported. It also disputed some of the paper’s reporting.
But the legal letter also included affidavits from the woman, said theWSJ, about her relationship with Mr Musk and her time at SpaceX.
The affidavit said she had a “romantic relationship” with Mr Musk in the past but not when she was employed by SpaceX.
“Elon tried to rekindle our relationship prior to my employment, and I rejected the advance,” the affidavit from the woman read.
“While there was some initial awkwardness, it was nothing out of the ordinary after a rejection.”
The newspaper also reported she was also “unhappy” at SpaceX, had little authority and executives didn’t take her seriously.
She said her frustration at SpaceX “were completely unrelated to any romantic or personal interactions with Elon Musk”.
“I came into a very difficult role as a newcomer into an established company.”
‘Come by’
Trying to find a way to successfully do her role, she kept in touch with Mr Musk, it’s been claimed and visited him at home.
But she claimed his behaviour would make her job harder.
“He would text her, like a lot,” said one of the friends.
On one occasion, it’s claimed, Mr Musk texted her name repeatedly when she didn’t respond to a late night invitation to come to his mansion.
On another occasion, when she was on the payroll, he allegedly texted her to “come by” his home and then continued texting when she also didn’t respond.
“Are you coming over? If not, I will probably tranq (sic) out. Too stressed to sleep naturally,” was one of the texts.
“Probably best if we don’t see each other,” he later allegedly responded in a final text.
In the morning, the woman replied and said she had fallen asleep and missed his texts.
Later the same day, the woman told a friend she had “mild [social] anxiety resulting from impostor syndrome” which “definitely makes this job harder”.
“And that’s definitely exacerbated by Elon’s behaviour,” her friend responded.
The woman replied: “So badly.”
She added that “he broke up with me this morning, if I interpreted that last text”.
Through her lawyers, she said the text about “breaking up” was a joke.
She eventually moved to a different role in the company and, in 2019, left SpaceX.
SpaceX’s president Gwynne Shotwell pushed back on the WSJ’s reporting.
“The untruths, mischaracterisations, and revisionist history in your email paint a completely misleading narrative,” she said, reported the paper.
Offer to have Musk’s babies
In 2013, a woman who had worked at SpaceX alleged that Mr Musk had asked her on several occasions to have his babies, according to the Journal.
Among his 10 children, Mr Musk has twins with another SpaceX employee, Shivon Zilis. The owner of social media platform Twitter/X has expressed his concerns about under-population.
After the woman declined Mr Musk’s offer to have his children, she claimed the working relationship between the two declined, according to the Journal.
She was denied a raise and Mr Musk would complain about her. She eventually left with a package of around $1.5 million.
‘Bootie call’
Another woman said she began a sexual relationship with Mr Musk in 2014 when she was working sometimes up to 17 hours days directly with the boss.
At the time she had fallen out with another executive and was offered a less visible role away from Mr Musk.
While her future at the company was still uncertain, she alleged Mr Musk asked her if she wanted to have a drink at his home. She said the pair drank, chatted and had sex.
After another date, she told friends she believed a serious relationship was afoot. But it began to dawn on her that drinks and sex was likely the extent of what she would get.
Eventually, senior SpaceX staff began to negotiate her exit from the company.
Two days before she was due to leave the company, she alleged, she received a text from Mr Musk which said simply “drinks?”
She said she only saw the text the next day.
“11:25pm bootie call. Glad I was sleeping,” she wrote in a text to a friend.
The woman then said Mr Musk emailed and texted her claiming that she had pursued him when he was fragile due to his separation from his then wife.
“You insisted on coming to my house to sleep with me when I was just sad and tired and wanted to be alone,” he said in a text after she left SpaceX.
Originally published as ‘Bootie call’: Claims Musk asked staff for sex
‘Get serious’: Uni staff on two-week strike
Staff at a major university have walked off the job for two weeks, an act that could affect lower socio-economic groups and the most marginalised learners.
‘You’re the problem’: Kmart shopper erupts
A top recruiter has taken aim at “entitled, self-absorbed” Aussies after a shocking moment she witnessed in a Kmart store.