SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, is revealed to have paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against the billionaire in 2018, a news article has alleged.
Business Insider accessed documents, email correspondence and spoke to a friend of the flight attendant who worked for SpaceX.
According to the report, the flight attendant accused "Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage" in 2016.
Calling the story a "politically motivated hit piece," Musk asked for more time to respond to Insider's question stating, "If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light."
SpaceX did not respond to Insider's questions while SpaceX vice president of legal Christopher Cardaci said, "I'm not going to comment on any settlement agreements" when reached via phone.
Instead of responding to Insider, the controversial Tesla and SpaceX chief took to Twitter to term the story a "personal attack" on him and called the accusations "utterly untrue". He has accused the publication of writing the "hit piece" to interfere with his acquisition of Twitter and that the story was written before they spoke to him.
In response, John Cook, the investigations editor at Business Insider said that the publication had reached out to Musk on 9 am US eastern time on May 18 giving him more than 24 hours to respond to the allegations.
Musk also challenged the flight attendant to describe in detail what they saw and what is not known to the public before claiming that the friend who spoke to Business Insider was a "far left activist/actress in LA with a major political axe to grind".
"The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens – this is their standard (despicable) playbook – but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech," he wrote on Twitter.
He followed up with a joke to downplay the latest controversy tweeting that the scandal can be named "Elongate".
On Thursday, Musk revealed that he will vote for Republican candidates instead of Democratic party candidates like he has, as the latter has become a party of "division and hate".
Musk bookended the tweet saying that he will be a target of a "dirty tricks campaign" by Democrats. Many deduced, that Musk was trying to get ahead of a story against him by painting himself as a victim of left-wing attacks.
While this is the first time Musk has been accused of sexual harassment, women have recounted being sexually harassed at Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk's Tesla has also been accused of racial discrimination with black employees alleging that the company turned "a blind eye to years of complaints from Black workers who protest commonplace use of racial slurs on the assembly line."
This is the latest controversy Musk has found himself in the past month.
After causing a turmoil at Twitter after offering to buy the social media company in a $44 billion deal, Musk has gone back and forth on his commitment to the acquisition.
His deal to buy Twitter has also hurt Tesla which has lost one third of its value since Musk sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stocks to finance his Twitter deal.
