Black employees who work for Tesla, an electric car manufacturer, are called “nigger,” “monkey,” “boy,” and “black b*tch to their faces in assaults on their dignity and their ability to work to feed their families.

At the Fremont, California plant, black employees regularly encountered graffiti, including variations of the nigger, swastikas, threats, and nooses, on desks and other equipment, in bathroom stalls, within elevators, and even on new vehicles rolling off the production line, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed last week.

The EEOC investigated Tesla after EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows filed a commissioner’s charge alleging that Tesla violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by subjecting Black employees to an unlawful hostile work environment and retaliating against employees for opposing harassment. 

Title VII prohibits racial harassment and requires employers who receive harassment complaints to take prompt and appropriate action to investigate and stop it.

The EEOC’s investigation also found that those who raised objections to racial hostility suffered various forms after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through conciliation, the EEOC filed its lawsuit (EEOC v Tesla, Inc., Case No. 4:23-cv-04984) in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

The EEOC’s lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, back pay for the affected workers, and injunctive relief designed to reform Tesla’s employment practices to prevent such discrimination in the future.

Elon Musk, a native of South Africa, is Tesla’s biggest shareholder and holds over 411 million shares for a 12.95% stake in the company – currently valued at just under $90 billion. 

The Tesla factory in Fremont originally opened as a General Motors factory.