Former SpaceX engineer, 62, accuses Elon Musk's company of age discrimination trends now

A 62-year-old former SpaceX engineer says that Elon Musk's company discriminated against him on the basis of age during his time there. 

John Johnson was hired in 2018 at age 58 because of his expertise in a sector called optics engineering that happens to be crucial to a range of applications related to the aerospace company's work. 

Musk requires his employees to be 'hardcore' and work extremely long hours at Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla. In his essay published on the platform Lioness, Johnson makes a point of saying that he often put in 10-12 hour days, seven days a week at the company's California offices - and consistently received positive feedback from managers during his performance reviews. 

'As we move into this new era of wealthy industrialists taking the helm of the largest tech firms, I feel compelled to tell my story, as I believe it is essential that their workforces reflect all the demographics of our pluralistic society, not just the male-dominant youth culture that saturated my former workplace,' Johnson writes. 

After resigning in June, Johnson filed a complaint with the Washington State Human Rights Commission alleging that SpaceX discriminated against him based on age and then retaliated against him. 

DailyMail.com reached out to SpaceX's press office for comment but did not hear back before publication. 

In early 2019, Johnson injured his back and was in physical therapy for weeks, but he didn't miss any work. When his back wasn't getting better, he needed surgery and told his manager that he'd only be out for a few days and provided him with a list of tasks he was working on.

Johnson alleges that SpaceX went behind his back and recruited an engineer to permanently take over his supplier development role and also internally reassigned a buyer to take over his procurement role. 

'These young men in their

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