ELON MUSK’S automobile manufacturer Tesla faces allegations of racial segregation at its California factory, with a lawsuit filed against the company on Wednesday.

“We found evidence that Tesla’s Fremont facility is a racially segregated workplace where black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in job assignments, punishment, compensation and promotion,” head of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing Kevin Kish said.

Hundreds of complaints were received by the agency, with factory bosses and co-workers also accused of making racial jokes.

“The facts on this case speak for themselves,” Mr Kish said.

Tesla responded by saying that the company “opposes all types of discrimination and harassment” and that it was committed to providing “a workplace that is safe, courteous, fair and inclusive.”

But the case file against Tesla, which was unsealed late on Wednesday, accused bosses and other workers of often referring to areas in the factory with large numbers of black or African-American workers as “the plantation.”

They would also regularly be “taunted by racial slurs and then provoked into verbal and physical confrontations” by non-black workers and then face disciplinary action, according to the case file.

“These racial slurs were shouted 50 to 100 times a day,” one worker said.

Black workers were “confronted with racist writing at Tesla on a daily basis,”  including graffiti featuring “swastikas, the Confederate flag, a white supremacist skull,” and “KKK,” it is alleged.

Non-black staff at the factory were given preferential treatment, including easier tasks and leniency in disciplinary hearings, the court papers said, while workers would display racist tattoos to terrify black employees.

The racial discrimination case is the latest to be filed against Mr Musk’s company.

In December, six women filed a lawsuit against Tesla, alleging a culture of sexual harassment at the facility and elsewhere.

Tesla said the lawsuit was “misguided” and that the US Securities and Exchange Commission “has never once raised any concern” over workplace practices following a three-year investigation.

It said the lawsuit appeared to relate to alleged misconduct that took place between 2015 and 2019 but said it would ask the court to “to pause the case and take other steps to ensure that facts and evidence will be heard.”

Tesla warned against “attacking a company that has done so much good for California.”