By The Financial District
May 21, 20222 min
Updated: May 23, 2022
Elon Musk has lambasted Business Insider for running a story on the complaint filed by a flight attendant in 2016 that alleged the Tesla founder exposed his genitals to her and demanded more than a body massage, saying it is part of a politically motivated campaign against him, Mike Wall reported on Space.com.
Photo Insert: The billionaire purchased a Gulfstream G65R0E in 2016.
The claim surfaced yesterday based its report on the account of a friend of the alleged victim.
According to a declaration signed by the friend, during a 2016 SpaceX corporate-jet flight, Elon Musk asked the attendant to come into his cabin and give him a full-body massage.
"When she arrived, the attendant found that Musk 'was completely naked except for a sheet covering the lower half of his body,'" Business Insider wrote.
"During the massage, the declaration says, Musk 'exposed his genitals' and then 'touched her and offered to buy her a horse if she would "do more," referring to the performance of sex acts.'"
Business Insider said the flight attendant filed a complaint, which was resolved in November 2018 when SpaceX paid her a $250,000 severance package "in exchange for a promise not to sue over the claims."
The Guardian reported that the flight attendant was fond of riding horses.
Musk has denied the allegations in a series of tweets over the past two days, calling them "wild accusations" that are "utterly untrue" and challenging the flight attendant's friend to describe any feature of his anatomy, such as scars or tattoos, "that isn't known by the public."
Business Insider says that it reached out to Musk before publishing the report. When asked to comment on the allegation, according to Business Insider, Musk requested more time and said that there's "a lot more to this story." The billionaire entrepreneur also called the story a "politically motivated hit piece."
According to John Cook, investigations editor at Insider, the publication reached out to Musk, at around 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) on Wednesday — about three hours before Musk posted his "dirty tricks" tweet and other wild rants.