A federal jury in San Francisco has ordered Tesla to pay a former Black contractor $137 million over claims that he was subjected to racial discrimination at work.
Owen Diaz, who worked as a contract elevator operator at Tesla's factory in Fremont, Calif., from 2015 to 2016, said in his lawsuit that he and others were called the N-word by Tesla employees, that he was told to "go back to Africa" and that employees drew racist and derogatory pictures that were left around the factory.
The suit said Diaz was excited to go to work for Tesla, but that instead of a "modern workplace," he found a "scene straight from the Jim Crow era."
Diaz says nothing was done to stop it
Diaz said that he complained about the discriminatory treatment to Tesla and the contracting companies Citistaff and nextSource, but that nothing was ever done to stop it.
"I'm gratified that the jury saw the truth and that they sent a message to Tesla to clean up its workplace," Larry Organ, one of Diaz's attorneys, told NPR.
