Dive Brief:
- A jury should decide whether Tesla allowed race-based harassment to go unchecked at its Fremont, California, factory, a court concluded Tuesday.
- The state sued Tesla in 2022, alleging “Black and/or African American workers” at the factory were subjected to daily harassment. Managers used slurs, segregated employees and ignored racist graffiti, the state alleged. The lawsuit also claimed Tesla disciplined Black workers more harshly than other employees, engaged in pay discrimination and retaliated against workers who complained.
- Tesla asked a state judge to dismiss the claims, but the court determined earlier this week that most should move on to a jury trial. Among other things, a jury should decide whether Tesla knew about the allegations and whether it took immediate and appropriate action, the judge concluded.
Dive Insight:
Notably, the lawsuit pointed to Tesla’s HR department.
“With [an] under-staffed and inadequately trained human resources department, [Tesla] failed to take reasonable action in response to these complaints,” the state’s civil rights department said.
Following an investigation, the state concluded that “in 2016, before Tesla established its employee relations department, Tesla had only 33 human resources professionals and managers to serve 19,916 workers in California. That is a ratio of about one human resources officer to 604 workers. In 2020, that ratio rose to about one human resource member to 740 workers.”
According to research from SHRM the year the Tesla lawsuit was filed, the average ratio was 1.7 HR staff per 100 employees. Last year, that number sat at 1.98 to 100.
For Tesla, Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Tesla, Inc., is just one of several recent lawsuits focused on its Fremont factory.
In March 2024, the company agreed to settle a race discrimination lawsuit after two separate jury trials ended in favor of one of the factory’s employees. In an August 2025 lawsuit, a group of former Tesla HR professionals alleged they were fired or forced to resign after attempting to surface race discrimination complaints from workers at the factory; a court granted Tesla’s request to compel arbitration for at least one of the plaintiffs.
And earlier this year, a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging pervasive race-based harassment at the factory was headed for mediation, according to court documents.
The director of the state’s Civil Right Department said in a Wednesday statement that California is looking forward to having its day in court. Tesla did not respond to an HR Dive request for comment but previously called the state’s efforts “misguided.”
