Elon Musk has by no means been a fan of range, fairness, and inclusion. We all know that as a result of final month, he took to X—seemingly out of nowhere, however one by no means is aware of—to write, “DEI should DIE,” and on Wednesday—in response to a 4,000-word publish by fellow billionaire Invoice Ackman on the matter, and the way it relates to former Harvard president Claudine Homosexual—he declared, “DEI is simply one other phrase for racism. Disgrace on anybody who makes use of it.” So, do we expect a primer from one other billionaire, Mark Cuban, on DEI and why it’s good for the office will change the man’s thoughts? Most likely not, however Cuban has taken a shot!
Responding to Musk’s declare, Cuban wrote: “Good companies look the place others don’t, to discover the workers that can put your small business in the absolute best place to succeed. Chances are you’ll not agree, however I take it as a provided that there are individuals of varied races, ethnicities, orientation, and many others which are usually excluded from hiring consideration. By extending our hiring search to embody them, we are able to discover individuals which are extra certified. The lack of DEI-Phobic corporations is my achieve.” (Ackman, who waged a struggle towards the previous Harvard president, comes down on the Musk aspect of the argument, writing in his authentic publish that range, fairness, and inclusion initiatives are “racist,” that he’s anxious about “reverse racism” and “racism towards white individuals,” and that DEI is “a robust motion that has not solely pervaded Harvard, however the instructional system at giant” and have to be stopped.)
Musk’s Tesla highlighted its DEI efforts in its 2022 Influence Report, saying, “We’re proud to be a majority-minority firm with a big illustration of workers from communities which have lengthy struggled to break via the historic roadblocks to equal alternative within the US.” And as Bloomberg famous final month, Tesla has “held hiring occasions concentrating on ladies and college students of traditionally Black schools and universities and Hispanic-serving establishments, in addition to a number of inside occasions to rejoice worker range. It additionally has a number of worker useful resource teams, and the corporate in 2022 launched a nationwide inside DEI publication.”
Final 12 months, the Equal Employment Alternative Fee sued Tesla, with the federal company accusing the corporate of “partaking and persevering with to interact in discrimination towards Black workers on the Fremont manufacturing unit by subjecting them to extreme or pervasive racial harassment and by making a hostile work setting due to their race.” In response to an identical lawsuit from California’s Division of Honest Employment and Housing, the corporate stated is “strongly opposes” all discrimination.