New Delhi: Billionaire Elon Musk-owned aerospace firm SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against him in 2018, a media report has claimed. Reacting to reports that he sexually harassed and exposed himself to a flight attendant, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has called it "politically motivated". The billionaire took to Twitter and mentioned that it was "utterly untrue".
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A flight attendant for SpaceX said Elon Musk asked her to "do more" during a massage, documents show, according to a report by Business Insider. As per documents and interviews accessed by the publication, the flight attendant was employed with SpaceX's corporate jet fleet and she was a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis.
She accused the SpaceX CEO of "exposing his erect penis to her", rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage. The incident took place in 2016, the Insider report added. The publication also obtained a declaration signed by a friend of the flight attendant and prepared in support of her claim.
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Reacting to the reports, Musk tweeted: "I have a challenge to this liar who claims their friend saw me 'exposed' – describe just one thing, anything at all (scars, tattoos, …) that isn’t known by the public. She won’t be able to do so, because it never happened."
The chief executive of Tesla who is also in the midst of a contentious effort to buy micro blogging site Twitter, said earlier on Wednesday that he would vote for Republican instead of Democrat, predicting a "dirty tricks campaign against me" would follow.