Elon Musk's Space X investigated for alleged hiring discrimination

[Hydrogen]

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating SpaceX over whether the company discriminates against non-U.S. citizens in its hiring practices and said Elon Musk’s company is stonewalling a subpoena for information, court documents revealed Thursday.

The DOJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen claiming that the company discriminated against him based on his citizenship status.

“The charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident,” DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in a court document filed Thursday. The document was a request for a judge to order SpaceX to comply with an administrative subpoena for documents related to how the company hires.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/doj-investigating-spacex-after-hiring-discrimination-complaint-.html

....



Am I reading this wrong. 

It seems they're saying its illegal or immoral for Space X to not hire someone on the basis of them being an illegal immigrant.

Maybe someone is unhappy about Elon Musk's twitter posts. For whatever reason.

What am I supposed to think about this?

[TopTort777]

What am I supposed to think about this?

Just ignore it. The peak of popularity or so called cult of Elon Must success makes people crazy. I think people will come up with something negative, to provoke Musk. Main target is unchangeable for decades - money. It is very common, when person is rich - others try to find shit to draggle him.

This article was written/created just to cool down the popularity and show that there are powers that "control" the World. Imho, this might be a reaction to "Musk put #bitcoin hashtag in twitter and provoked its growth" - we show him we have compromising evidence and other instruments to make you silent or stop

[NotATether]

It seems they're saying its illegal or immoral for Space X to not hire someone on the basis of them being an illegal immigrant.

No that's not the reason SpaceX denied his job application. There are laws that prevent SpaceX from hiring employees who aren't US citizens or residents called ITAR that basically says if you're not one of those kind of people then you can't work on US military tech. And SpaceX rockets are classified as military tech since, you know, they can be used inside missiles.

The person who got rejected probably just called it upset and decided to sue it as alleged discrimination. But the plaintiffs cannot win this lawsuit because of this regulation in place.  Elon Musk even said he wants to hire them but he can't.

[100bitcoin]

How is this thread remotely related to Bitcoin or even Crypto?

[bryant.coleman]

Seriously, is this even news? If a corporation gives preference to employees in the country where it is based in, the governments should be happy about it. This is some sort of standard procedure that is being followed everywhere. In the EU, the corporations can hire someone from outside the EU only if they can prove that there are no qualified individuals within the EU member states. Anyway, I was expecting this sort of lunacy ever since Biden was elected as the POTUS.

[suchmoon]

It seems they're saying its illegal or immoral for Space X to not hire someone on the basis of them being an illegal immigrant.

It seems that you made it up. Where does it say that the person was an illegal immigrant or an immigrant at all?

[squatz1]

It seems they're saying its illegal or immoral for Space X to not hire someone on the basis of them being an illegal immigrant.

It seems that you made it up. Where does it say that the person was an illegal immigrant or an immigrant at all?

Found this from Reuters, should probably at least semi back up what Hydrogen is saying:

“Specifically, the charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident”, DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in the complaint filed on Thursday.

Seems that this particular case is about them inquring into if the candidate was a US citizen and at the end of the process the person didn’t get the job. Which lead to the net portion regarding discrimination.

During this investigation they’ll try to find if this is a pattern of behavior at SpaceX or just a one off incident. Not sure on the legality or laws surrounding it, but thought I’d help out here.

[suchmoon]

Found this from Reuters, should probably at least semi back up what Hydrogen is saying:

“Specifically, the charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident”, DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in the complaint filed on Thursday.

A person in the USofA can be:

a citizen
a permanent resident (green card), AKA immigrant
a non-immigrant (work visa etc)
an undocumented/illegal/whatchamacallit person

I really doubt that an illegal immigrant (one having no right to work in this country to begin with) would be able to get the DOJ to investigate and nothing in the article supports that.

That's not to say the complaint has merit, just that the assumption "non-citizen/non-green-card-holder => illegal immigrant" is absurd.

[sirazimuth]

How is this thread remotely related to Bitcoin or even Crypto?

Its not, why do you ask? 
Wait, I know....you must be new here....

[squatz1]

Found this from Reuters, should probably at least semi back up what Hydrogen is saying:

“Specifically, the charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident”, DOJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in the complaint filed on Thursday.

A person in the USofA can be:

a citizen
a permanent resident (green card), AKA immigrant
a non-immigrant (work visa etc)
an undocumented/illegal/whatchamacallit person

I really doubt that an illegal immigrant (one having no right to work in this country to begin with) would be able to get the DOJ to investigate and nothing in the article supports that.

That's not to say the complaint has merit, just that the assumption "non-citizen/non-green-card-holder => illegal immigrant" is absurd.

Gotcha, just wanted to point out the fact that the complaint was about citizenship status / not something that was just bullshit and made up by people as we p&s regulars know that making stuff up and then sourcing bullshit is a pretty common tactic here for some interesting reason.

Totally support the continued explanation though, totally needed on here. Didn’t want the OP’s argument to get shot down b/c it did have at least a bit to stand on

But in regards to this suit — Is there a particular reason that companies wouldn’t hire immigrants and people listed in the groups that you’ve described (minus citizens for a second) not sure what the benefit is to avoid these people (besides personal preference)

[Mauser]

Am I reading this wrong. 

It seems they're saying its illegal or immoral for Space X to not hire someone on the basis of them being an illegal immigrant.

Maybe someone is unhappy about Elon Musk's twitter posts. For whatever reason.

What am I supposed to think about this?

I thought that because SpaceX works on rocket technology that it has special requirements for their workers and employees and are only allowed to hire people from USA or people with a green card. There are a lot of new technologies being developed in SpaceX that might be attractive to foreign companies and governments, so there are special rules in place for national security reasons. There also was an Interview with Elon Musk a while back where he discusses his hiring strategy and that he looks for foreigners in his Tesla company.

[suchmoon]

But in regards to this suit — Is there a particular reason that companies wouldn’t hire immigrants and people listed in the groups that you’ve described (minus citizens for a second) not sure what the benefit is to avoid these people (besides personal preference)

Green card vs citizen - basically no difference, except certain government jobs (most federal government jobs really) require citizenship.

No green card - some or lots of paperwork for the business (e.g. to transfer H1-B visa). Some employers punt the cost of it to the employee.

However Space X needs to comply with ITAR requirements as NotATether mentioned, and the paperwork required to get an exception to that is likely much more complicated/expensive/unlikely to succeed than a visa transfer or even sponsoring a new visa.

[squatz1]

But in regards to this suit — Is there a particular reason that companies wouldn’t hire immigrants and people listed in the groups that you’ve described (minus citizens for a second) not sure what the benefit is to avoid these people (besides personal preference)

Green card vs citizen - basically no difference, except certain government jobs (most federal government jobs really) require citizenship.

No green card - some or lots of paperwork for the business (e.g. to transfer H1-B visa). Some employers punt the cost of it to the employee.

However Space X needs to comply with ITAR requirements as NotATether mentioned, and the paperwork required to get an exception to that is likely much more complicated/expensive/unlikely to succeed than a visa transfer or even sponsoring a new visa.

Ah I see. A much more prevalent issue in Silicon Valley then it would be in the industries that I’ve worked in and worked around.

Article is pointing to the fact that they want to prove that they the burden to comply with certain regulations would be too burdensome. At least that’s what was in the Reuters article. That’s what I assume you’re talking about in the latter portion of this post.

We really need some changes in immigration by the way, we shouldn’t make it difficult for people who really want to work her to work here. Shouldn’t take some mega tech company in Silicon Valley with lobbying power to be the decision maker in regards to if you have the ability to work here (being sponsored).

[suchmoon]

We really need some changes in immigration by the way, we shouldn’t make it difficult for people who really want to work her to work here. Shouldn’t take some mega tech company in Silicon Valley with lobbying power to be the decision maker in regards to if you have the ability to work here (being sponsored).

I could go on for pages how idiotic legal immigration process is in this country. We're quite literally giving away smart and qualified individuals to other countries that don't have these bullshit barriers. And no, businesses won't be hiring Americans if they can't "import" immigrants... they outsource/offshore, mainly because there aren't enough Americans in certain fields and there aren't enough Americans studying those subjects in college either so this problem will only get worse. Ten years from now we'll be crying about lost technology jobs like we're crying about lost manufacturing jobs.

[squatz1]

We really need some changes in immigration by the way, we shouldn’t make it difficult for people who really want to work her to work here. Shouldn’t take some mega tech company in Silicon Valley with lobbying power to be the decision maker in regards to if you have the ability to work here (being sponsored).

I could go on for pages how idiotic legal immigration process is in this country. We're quite literally giving away smart and qualified individuals to other countries that don't have these bullshit barriers. And no, businesses won't be hiring Americans if they can't "import" immigrants... they outsource/offshore, mainly because there aren't enough Americans in certain fields and there aren't enough Americans studying those subjects in college either so this problem will only get worse. Ten years from now we'll be crying about lost technology jobs like we're crying about lost manufacturing jobs.

Pretty extreme example here, but I read the article from Georgia regarding (from sometime ago) about how they made their immigration process so stringent that they had a very hard time getting people to work on their farms. They’d typically relied on undocumented immigrants (yes people that are illegal) to do this work, but when they were forced to be more stringent and tried to hire citizens no one would put up with the work.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/27/136718112/georgia-farmers-say-immigration-law-keeps-workers-away

But yeah, our immigration process is horribly dumb. It’s flooded with racism, nationalism, and greedy lawyers who use its complexity to ensure that they continue to have a job as they screw their clients out of whatever money they have while they’re going this through archaic process.

[Quickseller]

I really doubt that an illegal immigrant (one having no right to work in this country to begin with) would be able to get the DOJ to investigate and nothing in the article supports that.

That's not to say the complaint has merit, just that the assumption "non-citizen/non-green-card-holder => illegal immigrant" is absurd.

You clearly have not been following the values of the Democratic party. I bet those votes for Biden are not looking so good now.

The lawsuit is clearly without merit.

[suchmoon]

I really doubt that an illegal immigrant (one having no right to work in this country to begin with) would be able to get the DOJ to investigate and nothing in the article supports that.

That's not to say the complaint has merit, just that the assumption "non-citizen/non-green-card-holder => illegal immigrant" is absurd.

You clearly have not been following the values of the Democratic party. I bet those votes for Biden are not looking so good now.

The lawsuit is clearly without merit.

Hit quote on the wrong post? Zero relevance to what I said. And you lost your bet IIRC.