The Justice Department has signaled it will withdraw a discrimination lawsuit against Elon Musk’s SpaceX brought during the Biden administration that accused the company of discriminating against asylum seekers and refugees in its hiring practices.
On Thursday evening, the DOJ filed an unopposed motion in a Texas federal court seeking to lift a stay on the case, stating that it intended to formally dismiss the action.
No reason for the withdrawal was provided, though a judge had previously questioned whether the DOJ had the authority to pursue the claims.
Neither Musk, SpaceX, nor the DOJ have issued public statements on the latest development.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, alleged that SpaceX violated federal law by requiring job applicants to be US citizens or permanent residents — even though no such restriction legally applied to many of the positions in question.
Prosecutors contended that the company not only enforced the unlawful requirement but also discouraged asylum seekers and refugees from applying.
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 at the time.
“This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.”
The move to scrap the lawsuit comes as Musk takes on a growing role within the Trump administration, spearheading aggressive cost-cutting measures across federal agencies as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
The program has resulted in contract cancellations and staffing reductions at multiple agencies, including those that have investigated SpaceX and Musk’s other companies.
One of the agencies under scrutiny is the Federal Aviation Administration, which had previously proposed fining SpaceX $633,000 for violating launch license requirements during two missions in 2023.
The new transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, recently confirmed in a Senate hearing that DOGE officials had been embedded within the FAA and were reviewing the penalty.
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s regulatory troubles appear to be easing elsewhere.
Earlier this week, a Texas-based environmental group dropped a separate lawsuit against the company over alleged water pollution at its launch site near Brownsville.
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