DOJ Sues SpaceX for “Discriminating” Against Foreigners in Hiring Practices
Jose Nino
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The Department of Justice recently filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, claiming that the space company engaged in discriminatory practices against asylum seekers and refugees.
The lawsuit was filed on August 24, 2023 and asserts that between 2018 and 2022 SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that export control laws restrict the company’s hiring to just United States citizens and legal permanent residents, per CNBC.
Since June 2020, the DOJ has subjected SpaceX to investigation, when a non-US citizen filed a complaint dealing with the department’s Immigration and Employee Rights Section.
“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” declared Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
She also noted that the investigation discovered “SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company.”
The DOJ claimed that in data SpaceX handed over, the space company “hired only one individual who was an asylee and identified as such in his application” during a four-year timeframe and across over 10,000 hires.
The DOJ is looking to win “fair consideration and back pay for asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX due to the alleged discrimination” on top of civil penalties and policy changes that SpaceX made.
The investigation kicked off following Fabian Hutter’s decision to file a complaint alleging that SpaceX had discriminated against him during an interview for a technical strategy associate position. In this instance, Hutter claimed that the discriminatory action was when the company asked him about his citizenship status.
Hutter is not a citizen of the US, but rather a “lawful permanent [US] resident holding dual citizenship from Austria and Canada,” per a document that SpaceX filed as a response to a subpoena from the DOJ in 2021.
On August 24, Florida Congressman Anna Paulina Luna announced that she will be filing an amendment that aims to block funding to the DOJ that is allocated towards lawsuits against companies such as SpaceX.
There’s clearly animosity towards Musk on the part of the Biden regime. After buying Twitter and re-branding it as “X”, Musk has irked many figures of the political establishment, who generally enjoyed the previous leadership at Twitter, which was more committed to censorship.
Due to the US’s robust degree of property rights, seizing Musk’s assets is politically off the table. But weaponizing the DOJ to get him mired in an endless series of lawsuits designed to bankrupt him is the establishment’s next best option.
Truth be told, this will likely be just one of many intricate attacks launched against Musk in the upcoming years.
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