{"id":180162,"date":"2017-07-05T19:08:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T00:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/07\/05\/meanwhile-back-in-silicon-valley\/"},"modified":"2017-07-05T19:08:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T00:08:00","slug":"meanwhile-back-in-silicon-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/07\/05\/meanwhile-back-in-silicon-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, Back in Silicon Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

We now find rampant sexual harassment and discrimination at Tesla Motors<\/a>, wunderkind Elon Musk’s most high profile project:<\/p>\n

The theme for this year\u2019s International Women\u2019s Day was \u201cbe bold for change\u201d in the fight for a \u201cmore gender inclusive world\u201d \u2013 but some at Tesla<\/a> had a different plan for the day. <\/p>\n

It was an opportunity for women to discover essential oils. A \u201chealth and wellness group\u201d at the electric car company invited female staff members to an 8 March \u201clunch \u2018n learn\u201d about oils and how they can help improve people\u2019s \u201chealth and happiness\u201d, according to emails seen by the Guardian, which reveal that the proposed event was quickly met with vocal criticism. It was particularly offensive to some given that a week earlier, AJ Vandermeyden, a female engineer, had publicly accused Elon Musk\u2019s company of sexual harassment and discrimination<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Tesla postponed the oils session. The company organized a town hall meeting on diversity for that day, which included six male executives and one woman, according to multiple attendees. At the crowded meeting at the Fremont factory, women took the microphone one-by-one and shared stories of sexual harassment, mistreatment by male managers, unfair promotion decisions and more, sources said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vandermeyden, who attended the meeting, thought the outpouring of comments validated her own story. But soon after, Tesla fired her<\/a>, accusing her of pursuing a \u201cmiscarriage of justice\u201d by filing a lawsuit that alleged \u201cpervasive harassment<\/a>\u201d and pay discrimination. Testimony from the town hall \u2013 along with internal emails from Musk, and Vandermeyden\u2019s first interview since her termination \u2013 paint a picture of a company that has struggled to respond to mounting complaints about gender discrimination and has aggressively attempted to discredit a woman who publicly criticized it .<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span> Musk also appeared to reference Vandermeyden in a company-wide email sent two days after her termination. In the email \u2013 with the subject \u201cDoing the right thing\u201d, sent at 2.29am \u2013 Musk lamented the scrutiny that his company faces, saying, \u201cThe list of companies that want to kill Tesla is so long, I\u2019ve lost track.\u201d<\/p>\n

As as a result, he continued, employees must work harder and faster than competitors, adding they can\u2019t be a \u201cjerk\u201d in the process.<\/p>\n

Musk did not name Vandermeyden, but went on to offer what seemed to be a thinly veiled attack on her lawsuit: \u201cIf you are part of a less represented group, you don\u2019t get a free pass on being a jerk yourself. We have had a few cases at Tesla where someone in a less represented group was actually given a job or promoted over more qualified highly represented candidates and then decided to sue Tesla for millions of dollars because they felt they weren\u2019t promoted enough. That is obviously not cool<\/span><\/b>.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n

What a classic example of a narcissistic self entitled tech bro, and Elon Musk is supposed one of the “good” guys in Silicon Valley, someone who is out to save the world.<\/p>\n

If this is their best, there is something seriously rotten in the immediate vicinity of San Jose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We now find rampant sexual harassment and discrimination at Tesla Motors, wunderkind Elon Musk’s most high profile project: The theme for this year\u2019s International Women\u2019s Day was \u201cbe bold for change\u201d in the fight for a \u201cmore gender inclusive world\u201d \u2013 but some at Tesla had a different plan for the day. It was an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[506,368,450,364,569,406,403],"class_list":["post-180162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bigotry","tag-corruption","tag-employment","tag-evil","tag-sexism","tag-stupid","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}