When Elon Musk personally contacted a former SpaceX engineering intern to discuss a role on his executive staff in 2017, the woman spoke with excitement to her friends about a high-profile problem-solving role at the rocket company, a dream for someone a few years out of college.

She and Musk had met years earlier during her internship, when she was still in college. She’d approached him with ideas for improving SpaceX. Her outreach had led to a date, which led to a kiss, and eventually sex, she told friends. The year after her internship, the billionaire had the fresh college graduate flown out to a resort in Sicily, before they ended things, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal…This article is based on conversations with more than 4 dozen people, including former employees, people familiar with Musk’s interactions with female subordinates and friends and family of the women. The Journal also reviewed emails, text messages and other documents.

Musk, who is more than 20 years her senior, attempted to restart their relationship but she rejected his advance. They remained close as she tried to establish herself in the new job.

He texted her often and invited her to come over to his Los Angeles mansion at night on multiple occasions. Sometimes she accepted his invitations, but friends said she told them at the time that his behavior made her job harder.

She eventually moved off Musk’s executive team, according to friends she told and to people familiar with her time at SpaceX. The woman left the company in 2019.

She is one of several female employees at SpaceX who have told friends, family, or the company itself, that Musk showed them an unusual amount of attention or pursued them.

…The college student studying engineering met Musk in the early 2010s during her summer internship at SpaceX. Musk and the woman went out for a meal after she sent him ideas about how to improve the company, she told friends. They bonded over “Star Wars” and kissed. A year later, the chief executive arranged for the woman to meet him at a resort in Sicily, where he was attending an exclusive conference sponsored by Google, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The woman’s passport was in another city at the time so Musk had arrangements made for a friend of hers to bring it to the woman on an early morning domestic flight, documents show. The woman was then scheduled on a first-class flight to London and a private jet to Italy, the documents show. The former intern told friends not to speak with Journal reporters and later said that she didn’t want to be part of an article, following outreach from the Journal…After she arrived in California, Musk invited her for drinks and came on to her, touching her breast, friends said she told them at the time. One of them said the woman recalled Musk saying, “Oh, I’m so bad. I shouldn’t be doing this.”…She told friends that she was unhappy at SpaceX, had no authority and had trouble getting executives to take her ideas seriously. She told one friend that she sometimes hid in the bathroom at SpaceX.

…She visited Musk at his home multiple times, as she struggled at work to establish herself, according to people familiar with the matter and friends she confided in. “He would text her, like a lot”, said one of the friends. When she didn’t respond to a nighttime invitation to come over to his house, Musk texted her name repeatedly, the friend recalled. About half a year into her job, the woman received another invitation from Musk to come to his house, according to a text exchange reviewed by the Journal. “Come by!” he wrote. When she didn’t respond, he peppered her with more texts: “Look, it’s either me or 6am [exercise] ☺” “Just finished the Model 3 production call. It’s def going to be hell for several more months.” “Are you coming over? If not, I will probably tranq out. Too stressed to sleep naturally.” When she still hadn’t responded, he wrote, “Probably best if we don’t see each other.” The woman texted him in the morning. “Oh man. I’m sorry, I’d already fallen asleep. I’ve been a late night person most of my life but have been trying to switch over because it seems responsible. TBH. Sorry I crashed last night”, she wrote…She said in one of the affidavits that she and Musk texted frequently as she supported him through difficulties, including issues at Tesla and his divorce from actress Talulah Riley. He was married to Riley when the woman and Musk were in a romantic relationship years earlier. They divorced in 2016…On the few occasions that she went to Musk’s house, the woman said in one of the affidavits, they watched TV and talked. In the email, she said they watched anime and talked about the Tesla Model 3 production ramp up and the “technical future of humanity”.

Another woman who left the company in 2013 alleged in exit negotiations with SpaceX human resources and legal executives that Musk had asked her to have his babies…In the summer of 2013, a woman who reported directly to Musk left the company and later returned with a lawyer. She alleged that Musk had asked her on multiple occasions to have his babies, according to people familiar with the allegations.

…But the woman at SpaceX declined Musk’s offer. She had continued working for Musk after he asked her to have his children, but their relationship deteriorated. Besides the baby allegations, Musk had denied the woman a raise and complained about her performance, according to people familiar with the matter. The woman received an exit package of cash and stock valued at more than $1.34^$1₂₀₁₄ million, according to a person familiar with the agreement.

A 4^th woman had a month-long sexual relationship with Musk in 2014 while she directly reported to him. The relationship ended badly, leading to recriminations over text and email as she left the company and signed an agreement prohibiting her from discussing her work for Musk.

…They say there’s an understanding that Musk, a charismatic leader with many fans who call him a genius, can act with impunity. “Elon is SpaceX, and SpaceX is Elon”, one former engineer recalled an executive saying during a June 2022 meeting after the firings of some of the SpaceX employees, who had criticized Musk and demanded greater accountability at the company.

…When the woman told a human resources executive about the affair accusation, it got back to Gwynne Shotwell, the woman told a friend.

The woman said in a text message that she understood the conversation to have been confidential. “He told Gwynne everything. She told me”, the woman texted the friend, referring to the human resources executive to whom she’d reported Shotwell. “I should be able to go to HR for such things. She f—ing thought I was having an affair with her husband for God’s sake.”

…In the fall of 2014, Musk initiated a sexual relationship with the woman, who by that time was working directly for him alone, she told the people. Musk was still married to but separated from Riley. A couple of months earlier, Musk and a human resources officer had met with the employee and said that a coming restructuring in Musk’s office meant that the woman would have to move to another part of the company, into a less visible role, if she wanted to stay, she later told friends. She had declined but agreed to stay on as long as needed to get Musk’s new chief of staff, Sam Teller, up to speed. “[Shotwell] has 100% sabotaged my future at a company I love, and I am not safe in any position”, she wrote in an email to another friend in September 2014. “This position is killing me and it has [affected] my mental and now physical health.” But she was still at SpaceX in the late fall of 2014, at Musk’s request, when he approached the woman at her desk and asked her if she wanted to have a drink and talk at his Bel-Air mansion, his primary Los Angeles residence at the time, situated on a knoll overlooking a country club.

…In bed the next morning, Musk promised the woman Tesla stock for unpaid work she’d done for him at the carmaker and in his personal life, she told a person close to her. Musk told the woman that if the relationship ever became public, they’d have to say it started after she left the company, the woman later told that person and another friend. Later that December, the woman asked Musk if she could enlist SpaceX information-security employees to check her email account, after they discussed the possibility of her email getting hacked. Musk granted her request but urged her in an email to delete “anything you don’t want them to see ahead of time, incl from sent folders and trash.”

…The woman initially confided in people close to her that she believed she and Musk were starting a serious relationship and that they had a connection. By late December, she was telling her friends that she felt used. Early on, she had wanted to keep their relationship private, but as it progressed, she sought more than drinks at his house and sex. When she suggested dinner out, Musk said he couldn’t be seen with her in public, citing ongoing negotiations over a possible divorce from Riley.

…Musk declined to pay the woman directly in Tesla stock. In a Dec. 29, 2014, email, Teller offered her $47,287.81^$35,400₂₀₁₄ in cash for her unpaid work, saying she could use it to buy the stock instead. She negotiated the offer up to $85,000, citing taxes and her broad brief for the billionaire. To get the money, she had to sign an agreement that required her to release Musk from potential legal claims “known and unknown”, and to keep information about him “in strictest confidence”, including the document itself, which Teller had received from Tesla’s then-general counsel Todd Maron, who had also been a divorce lawyer for Musk. She shared the agreement with people close to her before signing.

…After the woman left SpaceX, Musk told her in texts and emails that she shared with others that she had thrown herself at him while he was in a fragile state over his separation from his then-wife, and they had been intimate only after she had resigned. “You insisted on coming to my house to sleep with me when I was just sad and tired and wanted to be alone”, he said in a text, the day after her exit from the company.

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