The electric vehicle giant Tesla Inc TSLA settled a racial discrimination lawsuit with a former employee Owen Diaz.
What happened: The lawsuit was filed by Diaz, a Black man who worked as an elevator operator at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, in 2015. Diaz was represented by attorney Lawrence Organ of the California Civil Rights Law Group.
“The parties have reached an amicable resolution of their disputes. The terms of the settlement are confidential and we will have no further comment,” Organ said CNBC adding that racial harassment at Tesla’s factory comes from the “Jim Crow past.”
In his first trial, a jury awarded Diaz a $137 million payout. Judge William H. Orrick they later reduced this award to $15 million, following which Diaz and Tesla requested a new trial. A federal jury later ordered Tesla to pay Diaz $3.2 million in April 2023.
Because matter: Diaz’s deal comes as CEO of Tesla Elon Musk faces widespread criticism for its handling of hate speech on its X social media platform.
Musk was also accused of anti-Semitism late last year after supporting a post on Musk later apologized for the anti-Semitic comment, which led several advertisers to withdraw from the platform, including Walt Disney AND Comcast.
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