Tesla removed language about minority workers in its latest Securities and Exchange Commission filing after its chief executive Elon Musk’s criticism of diversity initiatives, which he’s called “literally the definition of racism.”
In Monday’s 10-K filing, a comprehensive report on Tesla’s activities throughout 2023, the electric vehicle-maker ditched a line it used a year ago that read: “With a majority-minority workforce, empowering our employee resource groups to take charge in driving initiatives that attract, develop and retain our passionate workforce is vital to our continued success.”
Musk has been particularly outspoken against corporations’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in recent weeks.
He double down recently after the nearly catastrophic Alaska Airlines flight where the Boeing-made plane suffered a fuselage panel blowout.
A screenshot of a proxy statement from Boeing filed with the SEC and shared to X showed that beginning in 2022, the aircraft manufacturer changed its incentive plan from giving executives bonuses based on passenger safety, employee safety, and quality to rewarding them if they hit climate and DEI targets.
“Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening,” Musk replied.
In a subsequent X post, he wrote: “People will die due to DEI.”
Tesla’s latest 10-K filing, which was earlier reported on by Bloomberg, still notes that the company’s human-resources policies are designed to “promote fairness and respect for everyone,” and the company says it won’t tolerate discrimination or harassment “on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability or veteran status.”
“DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it,” Musk said in a separate post shared on Jan. 3.
He later clarified: “Discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism.”
Even before Musk’s stance against workplace DEI initiatives, Tesla has faced multiple lawsuits involving racial discrimination.
Most recently, a California federal judge ordered Tesla to pay about $3.2 million to a black former employee after the Austin, Texas-based EV company was found to have failed to prevent severe racial harassment at its flagship assembly plant in California.
The verdict came after a week-long trial in the 2017 lawsuit by plaintiff Owen Diaz, who in 2021 was awarded $137 million by a different jury.
He opted for a new trial on damages after a judge agreed with that jury that Tesla was liable but significantly reduced the award to $15 million.
Diaz accused Tesla of failing to act when he repeatedly complained to managers that employees at the Fremont, Calif., factory frequently used racist slurs and scrawled swastikas, racist caricatures and epithets on walls and work areas.
The jury on Monday awarded Diaz, who worked as an elevator operator, $175,000 in damages for emotional distress and $3 million in punitive damages designed to punish unlawful conduct and deter it in the future.
Musk claimed on X that “the verdict would’ve been zero” if the judge had allowed the company to introduce new evidence in the retrial.
The EV maker is facing similar claims of tolerating race discrimination at the Fremont plant and other workplaces in a pending class action by black workers — a separate case from a California civil rights agency — as well as multiple cases involving individual workers, including Diaz’s son, Demetric Diaz.
The company has also denied wrongdoing in those cases.
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.