Jury awards $3.2 million to ex-Tesla worker for racial abuse

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal jury has awarded nearly $3.2 million in damages to a Black former worker at a Tesla factory in California. The factory has been at the epicenter of racial discrimination allegations hanging over the automaker run by billionaire Elon Musk. The verdict reached Monday marks the second time former Tesla employee Owen Diaz has prevailed in trials seeking to hold Tesla liable for allowing him to be subjected to racial epithets and other abuses during his brief tenure at the pioneering maker of electric vehicles. But the eight-person jury in the latest trial arrived at a dramatically lower damages number than the $137 million Diaz won in his first trial held in San Francisco federal court.