London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Tesla ordered to pay €118 million to ex-employee over racism claims

Tesla ordered to pay €118 million to ex-employee over racism claims

A former Tesla freight elevator operator suffered racists slurs at work. He's now won a case against the company of the world's third-richest man.

A jury has ordered electric car company Tesla to pay nearly $137 million (€118 million) in damages to a Black former employee after it was found to have turned a blind eye to the racism the man suffered while working at its California factory.

Hired through a recruitment agency, Owen Diaz worked as a freight elevator operator between June 2015 and July 2016 at the electric vehicle manufacturer's Fremont plant in the San Francisco Bay area.

There, he suffered racist slurs, including the "n-word" and a hostile work environment, according to court documents.

"Tesla's progressive image was a facade hiding the retrograde and demeaning treatment of its African-American employees," according to the complaint.

Diaz alleged that employees drew swastikas and left racist graffiti and drawings around the plant. Despite complaints to bosses, the plaintiff claimed that Tesla did not react to put an end to this abuse.

The San Francisco federal court jury awarded Diaz $130 million (€112.2 million) in punitive damages and $6.9 million (€5.9 million) in damages for emotional distress on Monday.

"It took four long years to get to this point," Diaz told the New York Times newspaper. "It’s like a big weight has been pulled off my shoulders".

"It’s a great thing when one of the richest corporations in America has to have a reckoning of the abhorrent conditions at its factory for Black people," Lawrence Organ, of the California Civil Rights Law Group, told the New York Times.

'Not the Tesla of today'


Tesla’s vice president of human resources, Valerie Capers Workman, admitted that the mood was "not perfect" at the Fremont plant, where other employees testified to having "regularly heard racist insults", including the "n-word".

According to her, these employees said that "most of the time they thought that this language was used in a 'friendly' way and in general by African-American colleagues".

It wasn’t immediately clear on Monday evening whether Tesla would appeal the decision.

In an open note to employees, Capers Workman emphasised that the Tesla of 2015 and 2016 (when Diaz worked in the Fremont factory) "is not the same as the Tesla of today".

Since then, an Employee Relations team has been created to investigate employee complaints, as well as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team "dedicated to ensuring that employees have the equal opportunity to excel at Tesla".

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×