The President Of SpaceX Has Just Responded To The Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Elon Musk

It was recently reported that SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell told employees last week that the company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, was being falsely accused of sexual misconduct, CNBC reported on Monday.

“Personally, I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations,” an email to employees obtained by CNBC reads.

After a former SpaceX flight attendant came forward with claims that he sexually propositioned her on a private jet in 2016, and then paid her a hefty $250,000 severance package, Musk dismissed her claims as “wild accusations.”

He told Business Insider that the entire scandal, which has sent his Tesla stock crashing, is a “politically motivated hit piece.”

Shotwell, who is SpaceX’s top-ranking female executive, also stated in her email that she “will never comment on any legal matters involving employment issues” and that the company has a “ZERO tolerance” policy for harassment and will investigate every complaint, “regardless of who is involved,” CNBC reports.

She joined the company in 2002 and is responsible for its day-to-day operations.

It was further reported that Ms Shotwell, who is also SpaceX’s chief operating officer, stressed: “Every accusation of harassment is taken very seriously, regardless of who is involved. For privacy reasons I will never comment on any legal matters involving employment issues.”

The billionaire has denied the claims he sexually harassed a flight attendant on his private jet in 2016, tweeting the claim was being made by a “liar” and that it was “utterly untrue”.

It comes as Musk expressed support for receiving a discount on his Twitter bid equal to the percentage of users who are spambots.

It was additionally reported that U.S. securities regulators have pulled their punches in dealings with Elon Musk largely because an April 2019 court hearing on a statement he made about Tesla on Twitter didn’t go their way, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked the court to hold the billionaire in contempt, saying a tweet by the Tesla Inc. CEO — which forecast production at the carmaker — violated a court agreement Musk signed the previous year to have some of his communications vetted by a lawyer.

By trying to rein in his comments, the SEC was veering into relatively uncharted territory. SEC rules require that public companies and their executives disclose accurate information that may be material to investors via channels that investors know to monitor. It doesn’t usually specify how companies should do that.

But the 2019 remarks by judge Alison Nathan — who found the terms of the agreement between Musk and the SEC to be “soft” and urged them to reach an understanding — knocked confidence among officials overseeing the case that the courts would support them if they attempted to prosecute his activity on Twitter, the four sources said.