Electric car maker Tesla has been ordered by a US judge to pay a former employee $137 million (more than 118 million euros) for failing to act against racist facts. Owen Diaz, a black man, was employed through a temp agency at Tesla’s Fremont plant, California, in 2015. According to a federal judge, he ended up in a hostile and racist work environment.
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According to Diaz’s lawyers, the ‘n-word’ was often used in the workplace. Diaz himself testified about sleepless nights due to racism. He will be awarded $6.9 million for emotional damage and $130 million in criminal damages. In May, Tesla also had to pay $1 million in a similar case.
It is possibly the highest amount ever awarded for racism at work.
In a response, the carmaker says that the ‘Tesla of today is no longer the Tesla of 2015 and 2016’.
Good production figures
The news of the conviction came a day after Tesla presented excellent figures on the number of cars produced. Tesla largely escaped the chip shortage and was able to produce 241,300 cars in the third quarter. That was much more than expected.
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