The Justice Division has signaled it can withdraw a discrimination lawsuit towards Elon Musk’s SpaceX introduced through the Biden administration that accused the corporate of discriminating towards asylum seekers and refugees in its hiring practices.
On Thursday night, the DOJ filed an unopposed movement in a Texas federal court docket in search of to elevate a keep on the case, stating that it meant to formally dismiss the motion.
No cause for the withdrawal was supplied, although a choose had beforehand questioned whether or not the DOJ had the authority to pursue the claims.
Neither Musk, SpaceX, nor the DOJ have issued public statements on the newest growth.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, alleged that SpaceX violated federal legislation by requiring job candidates to be US residents or everlasting residents — though no such restriction legally utilized to lots of the positions in query.
Prosecutors contended that the corporate not solely enforced the illegal requirement but additionally discouraged asylum seekers and refugees from making use of.
Musk, a vocal critic of the case, dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.
“SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense,” he wrote on the time.
“This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.”
The transfer to scrap the lawsuit comes as Musk takes on a rising function throughout the Trump administration, spearheading aggressive cost-cutting measures throughout federal companies because the chief of the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE)
This system has resulted in contract cancellations and staffing reductions at a number of companies, together with people who have investigated SpaceX and Musk’s different corporations.
One of many companies beneath scrutiny is the Federal Aviation Administration, which had beforehand proposed fining SpaceX $633,000 for violating launch license necessities throughout two missions in 2023.
The brand new transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, just lately confirmed in a Senate listening to that DOGE officers had been embedded throughout the FAA and had been reviewing the penalty.
In the meantime, SpaceX’s regulatory troubles seem like easing elsewhere.
Earlier this week, a Texas-based environmental group dropped a separate lawsuit towards the corporate over alleged water air pollution at its launch website close to Brownsville.
