Racially harassed Tesla worker allegedly fired after complaining to HR

Tesla’s production factory is a ‘hotbed for racist behaviour’ an African-American employee who says he was racially harassed at the firm claims – Bloomberg reports.

Marcus Vaughn, who worked in the Fremont factory from April to October alleges in a lawsuit that employees and supervisors regularly used the ‘N word’ around him and black colleagues. After complaining in writing to HR and Elon Musk, his contract was terminated for ‘not having a positive attitude.’

Vaughn claims that he’s just one of more than 100 black workers affected. "Although Tesla stands out as a ground-breaking company at the forefront of the electric car revolution, its standard operating procedure at the Tesla factory is pre-Civil Rights era race discrimination," the employee said in the complaint, filed in California’s Alameda County Superior Court.

According to the complaint, Musk sent an email to Tesla factory employees on May 31. “Part of not being a huge jerk is considering how someone might feel who is part of [a] historically less represented group,” Musk wrote in the email. “Sometimes these things happen unintentionally, in which case you should apologise. In fairness, if someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologises, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology.”