Elon Musk fired off a tweet on Thursday denying claims that he sexually assaulted a flight attendant working on a private jet in 2016.
Musk described as “utterly untrue” the allegations first published by Business Insider, which also claims Musk’s SpaceX company shelled out $250,000 to the unnamed female after she accused him of exposing himself.
The story hinges on the word of another woman, who is a friend of the flight attendant and who provided a statement to legal teams as part of the original settlement, but is not legally barred from speaking about the case by having signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Business Insider claims that on one 2016 flight to London while being massaged by the attendant Musk exposed himself and offered to buy her a horse if she would “do more” for the SpaceX CEO. But according to the same report that Musk denies, the flight attendant had enough money to buy a house, not just a horse, after settling with Musk two years later for $250k.
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Finally, we get to use Elongate as scandal name. It’s kinda perfect. 🤣 https://t.co/qSNH7lsn72
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2022
Musk hasn’t denied that SpaceX paid the woman $250,000 to settle her original claim, but when Insider contacted Musk for comment, he replied by email asking for more time to respond, claiming that there is “a lot more to this story.”
“If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light,” he told Insider, calling the story a “politically motivated hit piece.”
As Republican supporters have noted, the story appeared immediately after Musk outed himself as a Republican.
“[The Democrats] have have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican,” he tweeted the day before the story broke, adding: “Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold…”
