Elon Musk's Tesla to pay Rs 26.30 crore to former employee due to a racial harassment case

Electric carmaker Tesla has been ordered by a federal jury to pay $3.2 million (Roughly Rs 26.3 crore) to a black former employee, Owen Diaz. He won a racial harassment lawsuit against Tesla. Diaz worked as a lift operator at Tesla's Fremont factory from 2015 to 2016, where he was allegedly subjected to a racially hostile work environment.

The lawsuit against claimed that black workers regularly faced racist slurs on the factory floor, and racist graffiti in bathrooms. A report by BBC claims that some employees referred to areas where black or African-American staff worked with racist historical names, such as "the plantation."

Initially, Diaz was awarded a whopping $137 million in damages, but the payment was later reduced to $15 million by a US federal judge in April 2022, citing the compensation decided by jurors as "extremely high."

However, on Monday, Diaz was finally awarded $3 million in punitive damages and $175,000 in damages for emotional distress.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented on the verdict via his official Twitter handle. Musk said that the verdict would've been zero if the company had been allowed to introduce new evidence. However, the billionaire did not specify what kind of evidence he was talking about. 

Both Sides of the Argument 

Diaz's lawyer argued that his outlook on the world had been permanently changed, and he called on jurors to award his client nearly $160m in damages due to his experience at Tesla's facility in Fremont, California.

On the other hand, Tesla's lawyer argued that Diaz's lawyers had failed to show that any serious, long-lasting damage had been caused by Tesla.

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