The Journal. - Elon Musk’s Unusual Relationships With Women at SpaceX

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

The billionaire founder showed several female employees at SpaceX an unusual amount of attention or pursued them. WSJ's Joseph Palazzolo describes the revelations. Further Reading: -Elon Musk’s Boundary-Blurring Relationships With Women at SpaceX  Further Listening: -Money, Drugs, Elon Musk and Tesla's Board  -Elon Musk's 'Demon Mode'  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk wants people to have babies. I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate. He has at least 10 children of his own. If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words. It's going to crumble. Mark my words. In 2021, he had two children with one of his employees, Siobhan Zillis, an executive at his company Neuralink. She has said, quote,

I can't possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, Zillis isn't the only employee that Musk has thought about having babies with. Musk allegedly asked an employee at SpaceX multiple times to have his babies, but she turned him down. According to people familiar with the matter, after that, their professional relationship soured. He had denied her a raise. He'd made some performance complaints about her, even though she was sort of intimately involved in handling his day-to-day. That's our colleague Joe Palazzolo. According to his sources,

the woman left SpaceX after receiving an exit package valued at more than a million dollars. Now, Joe and his Wall Street Journal colleagues are reporting that she's one of several female former employees of SpaceX who've told friends, family, or the company itself that Musk pursued them or showed them an unusual amount of attention.

SpaceX says that our reporting is misleading and doesn't represent the company's culture. A lot of the allegations are mutually reinforcing. And it was just a surprise to me because, you know, we've in other reporting kind of seen the blurring of Musk's personal and professional lives. And this is sort of that, but taken to an extreme that is very much contrary to existing norms of workplace conduct. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Wednesday, June 12th. Coming up on the show, Elon Musk's unusual relationships with female employees at SpaceX. Attention all soccer fans. From Orlando to Los Angeles, take to the fields of the USA for your next vacation. Ready to kick off?

Discover exciting games and events. Plus, find amazing hidden gems in cities full of adventures, delicious food, and diverse cultures. You'll love it so much you'll want to extend your stay beyond the matches. Get the ball rolling on your soccer getaway. Head to visittheusa.com. Joe's reporting is based on conversations he's had with dozens of people. Some of them are friends and family of the women. Others are former SpaceX employees. And he's reviewed text messages and other documents that allege inappropriate behavior by Musk.

One of the women in Joe's reporting began a romantic relationship with Musk in the early 2010s in the wake of her internship at SpaceX. Musk is more than 20 years older than her. So have you spoken to this woman? She has communicated with us through her lawyers, who also represent Musk and Tesla. And she told her friends not to talk to us and that, you know, she didn't want to be part of the article. The woman's lawyers provided the journal with two affidavits that she had signed. So they're two affidavits. They're dated June 3rd and June 7th. They're both a few pages long,

and they detail her version of events. The affidavits say, quote, nothing that Elon Musk did towards me during either of my periods of employment at SpaceX was predatory or wrongful in any way. When did this woman and Musk first meet? They met when she was an intern. She was a college summer intern at SpaceX. And she sends him some ideas for improving SpaceX, you know, kind of a bold move. That is a bold move, sending the CEO a message saying, hey, I've got some ideas for your company. Yeah, she sends along some ideas. And Musk seems to respond to it because she says in her affidavit that she invited him out to dinner and that he agreed. And our reporting shows that they had this meal, they shared a kiss, they had bonded

over Star Wars. And then, you know, that started this romantic relationship. According to documents reviewed by Joe, a year after her internship at SpaceX ended, Musk invited her to join him in Sicily. She's a fresh college graduate, and Musk is attending a very exclusive conference in Sicily at a golf resort. It's sponsored by Google. It's kind of informally known as Google Camp, where a bunch of, you know, highflyers get together and talk. She wanted to join him, but there was a problem. Her passport was in a different city. So Musk made arrangements for her friend to bring the passport to her on an early morning flight.

She gets her passport and she hops on a plane to London. And then from there, she takes a private jet to go meet Elon, who is waiting for her at the resort in Sicily. The woman says she broke off the relationship with Musk, and then a few years later, in 2017, he contacted her. This time, he wasn't offering her a trip to Sicily. He wanted to talk to her about coming to work for him in Los Angeles on his executive team at SpaceX. And the role is going to be to find problems and fix them. And is she excited about that? So according to her friends, she's really excited.

You know, this is like a huge opportunity for her. She's an engineer by training. She's just a little bit removed from college. So this is a really big deal. Former employees told Joe that while she was a talented engineer, they found the job offer odd. They're kind of wondering, you know, like, why is someone so young, you know, like a mid-20s person getting this high-profile role. So after she arrives in California, according to her friends, she tells him that Musk invites her out for drinks. And during that encounter, he makes a sexual advance and grabs her breasts, she says. And then one of her friends, whom she's talking to right after this alleged incident

happens, shares that Musk had said, oh, I shouldn't be doing this, I'm so bad. In one of the affidavits signed by the woman, without providing details, she said, quote, Elon tried to rekindle our relationship prior to my employment, and I rejected the advance. While there was some initial awkwardness, it was nothing out of the ordinary after her rejection.

But friends say Musk's attention continued. One of her friends told the journal that he would, quote, text her, like, a lot. Joe has reviewed some of the texts that she and Elon were sending. She showed these texts to her friends. And, you know, some of them were invitations to come over at night, and, you know, sometimes she did go over there. Sometimes there were kind of asides, like, you know, when he texted her about how having children is, like, a person's highest purpose.

On the few occasions that she went to Musk's house, she says they watched anime and talked about the Tesla Model 3 production ramp-up and the, quote, technical future of humanity. She also says they never had, quote, sexual relations at any point, and that during her 2017 to 2019 employment, they did not have a romantic relationship.

Joe has seen text messages Musk sent the woman one evening, about six months into her time at the company. He writes, come by, exclamation point. She doesn't respond, so then he's like peppering her with more texts. He says, look, it's either me or 6 a.m. exercise. She doesn't answer again. Then he says, just finish the Model 3 production call. It's def going to be hell for several more months. She doesn't answer again. He says, are you coming over? If not, I'll probably trank out, too stressed to sleep naturally. And then, you know, she still hasn't responded. And his last

text is, probably best if we don't see each other. And then in the morning, when the woman responds, she's very apologetic. She says, oh man, I'm sorry, I'd fallen asleep. I've been a late night person most of my life, but I've been trying to switch over because it seems responsible. And then, you know, she apologizes again. Sorry I crashed last night. Later that day, the woman texted a friend about what happened. What did the messages say?

You know, she's kind of complaining about work. She's saying, you know, she has this mild social anxiety resulting from, you know, her feeling like an imposter. And then she says, you know, and that's definitely exacerbated by Elon's behavior. And her friend, you know, responds like, oh, you know, I was wondering about that. And then she says, so badly. And then her friend says, well, you know responds like oh you know i was wondering about that and then she says so

badly and then her friend says well you know of hanging out with him stresses you out about work i mean maybe you should just you know let things chill i don't know and and then she responds well i think you broke up with me this morning if i interpreted that last text and then there's a laughing emoji after that you know and then she sends morning if I interpreted that last text. And then there's a laughing emoji after that. And then she sends her friends the text that she received from Elon earlier. And then afterward, after she sends those texts, she says, why are so many of the men in my life so weird? With a lot of I's, a couple R's, and a lot of D's.

Like a big emphasis on the word weird. Weird. Yeah, like a very of I's, a couple R's, and a lot of D's. Like a big emphasis on the word weird. Weird. Yeah, like a very drawn out weird. So what does this woman say about this now? You know, she said in an email that her lawyer sent us that, you know, the breaking up comment was just a joke. You know, Elon's text messages to her weren't referring to any romantic relationship.

And she said, you know, when she was talking about how his behavior was exacerbating her issues at SpaceX, she says that what she meant was that Elon didn't have an interest in the kind of role that she was fulfilling at the company. And that, you know, she was also kind of lacking in the background. Like she had to catch up pretty quickly to be

competent in the role that she was in. So it was a high pressure situation. Friends said that at the time, the woman shared that the job at SpaceX wasn't going well because things had gotten awkward with Musk. Eventually, she moved off of Musk's executive staff and onto another team. In 2019, she left the company when there were layoffs. At SpaceX, employees are discouraged from directly overseeing romantic partners. But over the course of Joe's reporting, he found that, in another instance, Musk did have a relationship with a woman who directly worked for him alone. It began in 2014. The woman was on her way out at the company

and was spending her last few months there working closely with Musk. While she was employed by SpaceX, she took on work for things outside of the company. Tasks at Tesla, stuff in Musk's personal life. She often worked 17-hour days to keep pace with him, and he had a view of her from his desk. In the fall of 2014, according to the accounts that she gave to others,

he approaches her at her desk and asks her if she wants to come over to his Bellar mansion for drinks. And she accepts the invitation. She sees his chief of staff at the office, tells him about the invitation, and then goes over there. So she goes over there. And then again, this is, you know, what she's telling people right after this meeting happens with Musk at his house. What she says is, you know, essentially he waited on Thicke. He's telling

her about how she had beauty and brains and she was so smart and, you know, they're drinking and then they have sex. They saw each other again at his house in mid-December 2014, after Musk's children were put to bed, according to text messages the woman shared with a friend at the time. according to text messages the woman shared with a friend at the time. Musk invites her over, and, you know, then they text each other, I'll see you at 11 or so, she's texting him. You know, he says, you know, okay, if you get tired or don't feel like it for any reason, no problem to cancel, you know, and she's responding, I don't want to cancel. And she's saying, I might send a note to your house security,

just to let them know I'm dropping something off, you know, or something so they're prepared. The woman told a person close to her that the next morning in bed, Musk promised her Tesla stock for the unpaid work she'd done for him at the carmaker and in his personal life. Was this relationship out in the open? No, this was not out in the open. They were both going to, you know, lengths to keep it secret. So she later tells people that Musk told her that if anyone sort of finds out about the relationship, you know, you say that it happened after you left the company.

The woman initially confided in people close to her that she believed she and Musk were starting a serious relationship and that they had a connection. But her optimism was short-lived. By late December, she was telling her friends that she felt used. That's next. So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I going to go all in on the loaded taco?

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Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See Kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Tim's Maple Bacon is back, featuring crispy, naturally smoked bacon with a sweet and savory maple glaze and a 100% Canadian fresh cracked egg, all on a new cheddar croissant. Try Tim's Maple Bacon Breakfast Sandwich today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. It's time for Tim's. Musk and the woman's relationship coincided with her final weeks at the company. And Joe's reported that their relationship began to unravel when the woman asked for more from Musk.

She starts to want more than kind of just drinks and sex at his house. And at one point, you know, is like saying, why don't you take me out? And he says, no, I can't. Essentially, I can't be seen in public with you. At the time, he was separated from his then wife, Tallulah Riley, an actress. And that was kind of his excuse for not being seen with her. How did this relationship between Musk and this employee end? It ended badly.

And as tensions between her and Musk are kind of increasing, this is according to people familiar with the matter and emails she shared with others, Musk has his chief of staff work out her exit agreement. Musk declined to pay her in Tesla stock. She was offered $35,400 for the unpaid work she'd done for Tesla and other tasks. She negotiated it up to $85,000.

In return, she signed a separation agreement that released Musk from legal claims and barred her from discussing information about him. Is that the end of the story? No. A couple of days before she's actually left the company, you know, she gets this late-night text message from Musk, you know, where it's like, drinks?

You know, the woman doesn't see the text until the following morning, and she sends the text from Musk to her friend and says, you know, 1125 booty call, glad I was sleeping. Because by that time they were on bad terms. The woman left SpaceX in January 2015. And what has Musk said about this relationship? What he says, basically in texts and, you know, and emails that she's shared with other people, is that she threw herself at him. He was in this fragile state over a separation from his then wife. And that he's

trying to imply that they only were intimate after she was gone from the company. So the day after she leaves the company, he sends her a text, right? And so he says, you insisted on coming to my house to sleep with me when I was just sad and tired and wanted to be alone. And so that really sort of encapsulates the way that he comes to view the relationship.

SpaceX says that it fully investigates all complaints of harassment and takes appropriate actions. Gwen Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, said the journal's reporting doesn't reflect SpaceX's culture. She said, quote, I continue to be amazed by what this extraordinary group of people are achieving every day, even amidst all the forces acting against us.

And Elon is one of the best humans I know. Shotwell is Musk's number two with SpaceX. So Shotwell is president of the company, and she is viewed within the industry as kind of like the adult in the room. She's the one that makes SpaceX work. She's very key to the business she is the business this isn't the first time shotwell has defended musk in 2022 business insider reported that a

flight attendant who worked for spacex said musk exposed himself to her and asked her for sex on a plane in 2016. and when the story comes out musk denies the allegations, denies that he ever exposed himself to this woman while she was giving him a massage. And he even says, I don't have flight attendance, which is just not true. He has definitely used flight attendance over the years. When her story comes out and he makes these denials, Quinn Shotwell also sends out a company-wide email defending Musk and saying that behavior is nothing that she's ever witnessed with Musk in the 20 years that she's known him.

Shotwell was asked about her response at the time in an interview. No matter which way I played that, someone was going to be unhappy with me. But I had to say it. I have worked for Elon for 20 years. I don't believe he could have done what he was accused of. But he is imperfect, right? He's imperfect. I'm imperfect. Some SpaceX employees were unhappy with Musk and Shotwell, and they wrote an internal letter

protesting what they saw as the company's failure to take harassment seriously. wrote an internal letter protesting what they saw as the company's failure to take harassment seriously. They said the company wasn't living up to its no-asshole policy and that all leadership should be held equally accountable. Basically saying like, look, you need to apply anti-harassment policies to the people up top. You need to apply them uniformly or you need to apply them at all. And employees who were involved in the drafting that were fired. One of those employees was Tom Moline. Here he is in an interview with CBS in 2022. It was honestly shocking to see that sort of reaction from an organization that prides itself on having employees speak up about any issue, whether it's technical

or cultural. And those employees have since filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, basically saying that they were fired for, you know, protective activity. Like they should be allowed to go to their bosses and complain about what they perceive as lax enforcement of the company's code of conduct. But they also sent a pretty strong message to other employees who might consider speaking up if they saw something that they thought was untoward. SpaceX denies the allegations and is seeking a court ruling that the National Labor Relations Board structure is unconstitutional. You know, a lot of people talk about Musk as just sort of this unconventional genius with all these idiosyncrasies. And we started this conversation talking about Musk having babies with an employee, which certainly fits in that mold.

But your reporting seems to have uncovered that his relationships with female employees goes beyond just unconventional. I mean, there's definitely a through line with the baby stuff, right? So like that is a theme that returns over and over again in the reporting. You know, and then just him being kind of an unconventional guy to begin with. The weirdness is not a bug.

It's a feature and it's a good thing and it's why he's been so successful. You know, but what we're showing is not just unconventional behavior. What we're showing is conduct that is prohibited in workplaces across the country and the world. It's not something that can be explained away by, you know, Musk and his idiosyncratic nature. That's all for today. Wednesday, June 12th.

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Khadijah Safdar. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.