Bad news for Elon Musk's.
SpaceX, one of the companies that he runs, apparently paid a flight attendant
a quarter of a million dollars back in 2018 to settle a sexual misconduct
claim that she was making against Elon musk is being reported by Insider.
And we're gonna dive into the details of it acknowledging that the details
have been provided from a combination of a friend of the woman.
The woman is not coming forward, she is not a part of this and
the documentation from the time.
The woman who apparently made the actual claim is currently under an NDA,
with nondisclosure and non disparagement clauses for
Elon musk's SpaceX, Tesla, basically everything.
She cannot let's say, speak freely with free
speech about what happened because Elon musk doesn't want her to.
Anyway, here is what apparently happened back in 2016.
The attendant worked as a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis for
SpaceX's corporate jet fleet.
She accused Elon musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg,
without consent and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage.
The friend says, he whipped out his penis, it was erect and he started propositioning
her, like he touched her thigh and told her he would buy her a horse as you do.
He basically tried to bribe her to perform some sort of sexual favor and
the friend said that afterward the attendant was distraught and
visibly shaken, she was really upset, she didn't know what to do.
She apparently said that after that work began to dry up for her,
eventually the attendant felt quote, she was being pushed out and punished for
refusing to prostitute herself.
So this is about as classic a case of sexual harassment assault in
a workplace as you can imagine based on the allegations.
In that initially these rewards being dangled in front of you and
then if you turn it down there's the strike back at least being alleged in this
case that potentially work dried up.
She wasn't brought on the flights anymore, lost access to the money and all of that.
There's a lot of other angles to this breath that we'll get into and
we have to bear in mind that he's denying that any of this happened.
What do you think?
>> I will say that there's a lot to say about this but
one thing we can all conclude from it is that Elon musk is just a romantic.
According to these allegations it seems like he really
knows how to flirt very effectively.
You just whip it out, you offer someone a horse,
all the classic flirtations, insane, it is so
creepy but I [LAUGH] >> Why with the horse.
>> [LAUGH] For those listening to the podcast, a very triumphant
equestrian just appeared on screen [LAUGH] >> We've
got a lot of horse enthusiasts on the staff today.
>> [LAUGH] I usually can focus when she was so happy, I got a horse but
yeah, it is listen, there's a lot that you can conclude as a result of this.
And I'm of the mind that like listen, there are tons of settlements that
happen in workplace allegations that involve monetary payment and
don't actually have any basis in anything.
>> Sure. >> And so that happens.
And just because there's an NDA out there doesn't mean that the person who signed
it, the people who signed it are hiding the thing they're accused of.
I mean I hate to break it to a lot of people, but that's the case.
However, I will say I have multiple sources that work at SpaceX and
say that it is a wildly toxic environment to work in.
>> Yes. >> He makes it a bad place,
the kind of pressure that he puts on people is psychotic.
And in terms of the balance of ladies to bros,
there's a lot of bros and so everyone who works there will
admit that that is the case with that work environment.
And the way that this guy handles himself in general,
it fits with that narrative of who Elon musk is.
And a lot of this is smokescreen anyway but
I will say if we're taking the NDA as a term of service that restricts speech so
too are the terms of service, that restricts speech on these platforms.
That Elon musk is complaining about when it's not in his favor from a messaging
perspective and loves when it is in his favor from a legal perspective.
>> Yeah, no, he's never had any interest in the free speech rights of women.
He has alleged to have sexually assaulted in this case, journalists, all that stuff,
he's not interested in that.
It's only an opportunistic thing on social media.
It's a brand that he has put onto himself only in the last few months and
of course people have absolutely gobbled it up.
The rich guy says he likes free speech so clearly that's true and always has been.
But anyway, there're other weird things about this bear in mind.
The friend says, they encouraged her to get licensed as a masseuse but
on her own time they implied that she would get to fly more often if she were
to do this because then she'd be able to give Elon proper massages.
I thought that was kinda strange because you weren't hired to be a masseuse,
you were hired to be a flight attendant.
And if Elon will like massages, then he should be paying for
you to go to masseuse school.
So that's weird too, the idea that they didn't want to apparently hire
professional masseuses to come on the flights,
they wanted to incentivize flight attendants to become masseuses so
that they could do the other job that they had the entire thing very weird.
Anyway, this incident is alleged in a declaration signed by a friend of
the attendant and prepared in support of her claim.
Details are drawn from the declaration as well as other documents, including email
correspondence and other records shared with Insider by the friends.
So everyone, like if you're a huge Elon musk fan,
first of all get literally any other hobbies.
Second of all, they are gonna say as well turn to,
well this is just coming now because he allows free page so much.
This is from 2016 to 2018 when the settlement happened, so
just bear that in mind in terms of the time.
Now of course, if Insider gets this information and plans to write it,
they are as a serious journalistic enterprise going to reach
out to the people cited in it, and they did that.
They contacted Musk for comment.
He emailed to ask for more time to respond and said there's a lot more to the story.
And then he started his first of many bad defenses saying,
if I would inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be
the first time in my entire 30 year career that it comes to light.
He called the story a politically motivated hit piece.
Now the idea that I can't be a harasser if this is the first time
someone saying it doesn't make sense, every harasser has a first time.
It's an especially weak defense when it's coming about only years after you used
an NDA to stop the person from talking about it.
Which at least provides a hypothetical situation wherein there are other NDAs
stopping people from talking about it at SpaceX or Tesla, or
what other other companies he worked at for the 30 years.
So there's a horrible defense but he asked for more time.
Insider extended the deadline and
reiterated the offer to Musk comment on the claims.
He didn't respond, but to be clear he didn't respond to Insider.
He instead immediately ran to social media to get out in front of the story that he
had now been warned was about to come out.
And that is when you start to get these tweets that made headlines earlier,
like him saying in the past I voted Democrat because they were
mostly the kindness party.
But they have become the party of division hate so I can no longer support them and
will vote Republican, now watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.
Political attacks on me will escalate dramatically in the coming months.
And one of the writers for the piece made clear in a tweet,
so I will let you know exactly when we reached out to him.
It was at 9 AM Eastern yesterday and
he spent the next couple of hours tweeting about how there's now gonna be attacks.
Now that is such a transparent attempt to get out in front of it,
that it could possibly work except of course will and
every single one of his fans will accept it as we'll turn to in a moment.
But first Bret, there's a few more little details for you.
>> It's so funny.
Guys this hurts cuz this has never happened before,
a billionaire voting Republican.
God, how am I gonna handle it, I need some kind of grief counseling.
No, Elon musk is only ever in it for Elon Musk and
there's a certain strain of DNA within the American cellular makeup that loves that.
That's what it's about, go get yours, that do for you.
I'm fine with America like to a certain extent,
still being the wild west of commerce, I get it.
It is how we roll, it is an American thing that people are still very proud of no
matter who it caught.
But the truth here is we now have an absolute through line when
your Bitcoin bros who defend Elon musk simply because they want
a complete lack of regulation in any market, despite how many
times a lack of regulation has led to the destruction of every market.
That's why they're with them and you get to say back, yo,
the reason that journalists write this article before they
ask the person to respond is because of stuff like this.
The reason they wait until the last moment is cuz schmuck goes like this,
the powerful.
So if you need your decoder ring to find out why Elon musk is voting
with republicans it's because they cater to the powerful.
They run off and then they try to use their lawyers and their social media
campaigns to basically fight against something that is inherently liberal and
progressive, which is the actual free sharing of information and discourse.
>> 100%, so let's turn now to how this is playing out.
So Elon musk gets a heads up that this harassment assault story is about to come
out and rather than providing an actual strong defense to them when
given the opportunity, he immediately runs to Twitter and does a couple things.
He tells his fans, if anything comes out in the near future,
it's just politically motivated.
And then if that isn't enough he then after a couple of months now of both he
and the right trying to pretend that that Elon Musk guy,
he's just an independent thinker, he's not a right winger at all.
You never know which way he's gonna go.
I mean, I know he appeals to us in literally every way,
nobody can make a case for how he's supposed to be a leftist or whatever, but
no, he's like an independent.
He decides okay, I'm done with that.
I'm voting Republican, everyone, I'm a Republican defend me soon and that is
indeed what they will do because you can see tweets like this, which by the way,
this is both Arando and also I'm pointing out because he responded to it.
TaraBull says, where were these wild accusations against Elon musk before he
took a stand against the establishment?
Which Elon musk says, exactly.
And he means exactly what I was hoping you would say when I did this thing where I
tried to get you defend me.
So to TaraBull's question, I will provide a couple of responses.
One, standing with the Republican establishment is not being against
the establishment, can we be clear about that.
[CROSSTALK] Jump in.
>> When you're a billionaire who gets subsidized by the federal government
to do whatever the hell you want, you're the establishment.
When you're the richest person on the planet,
you're the establishment, period, full stop dude.
>> That's what it is.
So look, if you're a guy like this who tried to pretend that you're a moderate
and now you're identifying as a Republican and you're a billionaire and
you want the tax cuts and all that, that's not actually being anti establishment.
In a somewhat related sense, if you're a former leftist who now encourages everyone
to vote for Republicans literally every time, you're not actually
antiestablishment, you're just for that other part of the establishment.
So anyway, it worked, they're defending him.
There isn't a single Elon musk fanboy who's gonna actually read the story
seriously or even wait for more information to come out,
it's obviously a lie.
My second answer to TaraBull, where were these wild accusations
against Elon Musk before he took a stand against the establishment?
Well they existed because this was alleged in 2016 actually,
way before he was standing against the establishment.
Anyway he says, the attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens
because that would be convenient to him.
This is their standard despicable playbook but
nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech.
This is just Trump, that's all that is, they're only coming for me to get to you.
And by the way, the fact that the friend brought it up,
that could be politically motivated, sure.
Even from her statements, it kinda seems like it is,
but she didn't invent whole cloth the accusations which he settled,
he was in the room for the moderation of that settlement literally years ago.
And I can't say for sure that everything that's alleged actually happened but
it didn't suddenly manifest after he decided he was gonna buy Twitter,
that already existed.
The toxic work environment in his corporations,
that's existed for literally years.
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