San Francisco, Oct 6 (IANS): SpaceX engineer Ashley Foltz has sued the Elon Musk-run aerospace company, alleging pay discrimination where women and minority employees are being paid less than male and white workers.

Foltz said in her proposed class-action lawsuit that she was hired on a $92,000 salary as a base-level engineer, even though men with similar or less experience were offered as much as $115,000, reports Forbes.

Ashley was hired in September 2022 as a propulsion engineer at SpaceX.

Musk and company executives have “no legitimate justification for their discriminatory pay practices,” the lawsuit argued.

Foltz described herself as one of the few female engineers at SpaceX.

She found out about the pay gap when California's Pay Transparency Act came into effect.

Foltz accused SpaceX of violating California labour law, and asked the court to “award civil penalties and monetary damages to her and any other affected employees”.

SpaceX was yet to comment on the lawsuit.

This is not the first time the Musk-run aerospace company has been accused of discriminatory hiring and promotion practices.

In August this year, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) sued SpaceX for discriminating against asylees and refugees in hiring.

The lawsuit alleged that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

In job postings and public statements over several years, SpaceX wrongly claimed that under federal regulations known as “export control laws,” SpaceX could hire only US citizens and lawful permanent residents, sometimes referred to as “green card holders", the DoJ lawsuit alleged.

“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.