Billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who has been on the agenda for buying Twitter in the past weeks and then stopping this decision, was alleged to have sexually harassed the cabin crew in his private jet in 2016. “Totally untrue,” Musk said of the claim, which he denied.
The Business Insider site wrote that SpaceX, owned by Musk, paid $250,000 to an unnamed cabin crew who filed a sexual harassment complaint in 2018.
The site claimed that 6 years ago, Musk exposed himself to a cabin attendant while he was traveling to London on his private jet, and sexually harassed the officer.
The story was based on a friend of the person who said he had been harassed. The source, who did not want to be named, also said that Musk called the attendant to his room for a body massage during the flight, and that Musk, exposing himself during the massage, rubbed the cabin attendant’s leg and offered to buy him a horse “if he did more”.
According to Business Insider, the claimant realized that Musk’s rejection of his offer hurt his opportunities to work at SpaceX, and he hired a lawyer in 2018. SpaceX entered into an out-of-court settlement with him, which included a commitment to confidentiality.
In a statement on Twitter, Musk said, “I challenge this liar who claims that his friend saw me ‘naked’. Let him describe only one thing (scar, tattoo, …) that is not known to the public. He will not be able to, because this never happened.”
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, announced on Twitter on Wednesday that he had previously voted for Democrats, but that the Democratic Party had turned into a “party of discrimination and hate”, so he now supports Republicans. He also said that Democrats would start dirty campaigns against him after this post.