Tesla to face racism lawsuit from nearly 6,000 Black factory workers

EV giant Tesla is facing a lawsuit based on thousands of employees reporting racial harassment in the workplace. Nearly 6,000 Black factory workers at Tesla, headquartered in Texas, can now sue the company collectively for its alleged failure to address racism and harassment at its California plant, according to several news publications.

California Superior Court Judge Noël Wise tentatively ruled in favor of the workers after determining that the class action represents a common issue for all Black workers at Tesla’s Fremont plant, that the company was aware of the alleged misconduct and refused to take steps to prevent it, according to a written order issued February 28. 

The initial lawsuit was filed by Tesla worker Marcus Vaughn in 2017, who claimed that the factory production floor was a “hotbed of racist behavior,” according to Bloomberg Law reporting. In the complaint, he said that Black factory workers were subjected to a range of racist conduct including slurs, graffiti, and nooses hung at their workstations, Reuters reports. The factory workers’ co-workers and supervisors allegedly routinely used racial slurs, and employee complaints to human resources were largely unanswered.

Tesla has maintained it does not tolerate workplace harassment. Bloomberg reports Tesla initially responded to Vaughn’s suit with a blog post entitled “Hotbed of Misinformation,” denying the wrongdoing and saying the company fired three people after investigating the alleged incidents.

Lawrence Organ, a lawyer for Vaughn, told Reuters through email that he thinks, “the numerous complaints over time show how Tesla failed to prevent racial harassment of its Black employees,” and notes he is looking forward to developing a plan for a trial in the case. MySA reached out to Tesla but did not hear back prior to publication.

A hearing was scheduled at the end of the week for Tesla to contest Wise’s decision. This is not the first time news over Tesla’s workplace conditions has caught attention for the wrong reasons. In January 2024, CEO Elon Musk declared engineers would need to sleep on its Austin Giga factory production line in order to mass produce a new EV model in development.