Elon Musk’s Problematic Tweets About Sexual Harassment and Why Settlements Are Used to Hide Predators.

Elon Musk, Accused of Sexually Harassing His Female Employee at SpaceX, Denied All Accusations — -Despite Having Settled with the Employee for $250,000.

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, sexually harassed a female SpaceX employee, asking for sexual favors, and exposing himself to her. The company settled with the employee for $250,000, as reported by Business Insider, in 2018. However, Musk came up with a series of problematic tweets, attempting to deny the incident, by arguing that his body was “known” by the general public, and so any accusations made against him were null and void.

A settlement with an employee is a legal form of compensation for grievances made against one party, by another. It usually takes place outside of the vicinity of the court — -although court-mandated settlements also take place — between the two parties, separately. The term used for such cases is “settled out of court”, where a plaintiff and a defendant settle for a fixed, one-time payment to address grievances made, without facing the court. During this procedure, no judge or jury looks at the evidence, but the lawyers of the two parties decide on the final amount, and a transfer is made without the explicit admission of wrongdoing.

The average settlement for a sexual harassment case in one country is $53,000 US Dollars. Prominent organizations, individuals, and their lawyers rely on settlements to compensate victims without explicitly admitting wrongdoing, to avoid going to trial. Examples of sexual harassment settlements made by individuals include the one above. This enables the victim’s silence, in exchange for compensation, whilst the predator walks away without a formal accusation against them in court.

Settlements alone are not the problem. However, the regularised use of settlements to avoid legal charges, and issue additional terms and conditions — such as non-disclosure agreements — are problematic. They enable predators to walk away from cases — particularly those who are wealthy and powerful — without any form of moral or legal reformative actions. They exploit the financial, emotional, and social weaknesses of the victim in seeking extended legal assistance, providing testimony, and pursuing a case. Not to mention, they even silence victims, when accompanied by non-disclosure agreements.

This form of remedial action creates an environment where the predator faces minimal repercussions for their action. They do not even need to provide an apology of any kind to the victim or deliberate on the moral and legal consequences of their actions. All they need to do is provide financial compensation to a victim and ensure their silence, or compliance to avoid filing a legal case in court. It also enables wealthy, connected, and powerful predators to hide their actions from the mass media, which simply reports the out-of-court settlement as the latest finding in the cases made against them.

Harvey Weinstein settled with multiple victims that he had sexually harassed and did so using terms and conditions that made victims sign non-disclosure agreements regarding the sexual harassment they were victim to. His actions remained out of sight, out of mind of the mass media, due to this constant use of out-of-court settlements. It was not until tweets had been published by Rose McGowan, and other actresses, which highlighted this use of out of court settlements, that the mass media began to report on his history as a sexual predator.

Elon Musk is not new to this procedure, as it has been utilised for years. However, it is highly problematic that instead of admitting wrongdoing, he is making wrongful public statements that blame the victim, inspite of having settled with them financially in the first place. It shifts the perspective of the course of events on the predator, and provides them with extensive privileges to shape the public perception of the victim, or hide the incident from the public. Out-of-court settlements are thus, problematic through their use to silence accusations that require legal attention.