Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed disturbing new details about the man responsible for the deadly March mass shooting in downtown Austin, Texas, alleging that the gunman had previously been fired from Tesla after violently assaulting a female employee who accidentally stepped on his prayer rug.
The gunman, identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, a Senegal-born naturalized American citizen, opened fire outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden on March 1, 2026, killing three people and injuring 15 others before being fatally shot by responding police officers.
Now, Musk is speaking publicly about an alleged workplace incident that occurred just three months before the deadly rampage.
During an October 20 interview with biographer Walter Isaacson on The Builders, Musk described how Diagne allegedly attacked a female coworker inside Tesla’s Austin manufacturing facility in December 2025.
According to Musk, the woman inadvertently stepped onto Diagne’s prayer rug while he was praying in the factory.
Rather than simply addressing the accident, Diagne allegedly responded with physical violence.
“We had someone who was working at the Tesla factory in Austin until December of last year. He was fired because he assaulted a woman who stepped on his prayer rug in the factory.”
Musk continued:
“She accidentally stepped on his prayer rug and he assaulted her. Violently assaulted her.”
The billionaire entrepreneur said Tesla terminated Diagne’s employment following the incident.
Then came the horrifying events of March 1.
Musk explained that, months after the alleged assault, the former employee opened fire outside a crowded downtown Austin bar, killing three people.
He concluded with a pointed question about immigration and public safety:
“Now, I think we shouldn’t let people like that into the country. Do you?”
WATCH:
Tesla Faces Lawsuit Over Earlier Assault
Musk’s account is consistent with significant details of a lawsuit filed in March by Lillian Mendoza Brady, a 65-year-old Tesla employee who claims Diagne violently assaulted her during a company-authorized prayer break on December 4, 2025.
According to CBS News, Brady’s attorney, Robert Hilliard, said Diagne grabbed the woman and threw her to the ground while praying in a common area at Tesla’s facility.
The lawsuit accuses Tesla of negligence, alleging the company knew or should have known about Diagne’s aggressive tendencies and failed to provide adequate protection for employees.
Brady is seeking more than $1 million in damages.
Her attorney said she did not learn the identity of her alleged attacker until she recognized Diagne’s photograph in news coverage of the Austin massacre.
The Travis County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it had investigated the assault allegation but closed the case following Diagne’s death.
Musk’s statement that Diagne was fired for the incident adds a significant detail to the public record. The lawsuit and contemporary reports document the alleged assault, but the precise circumstances of Diagne’s termination have not been independently established.
Three Innocent Lives Lost in Downtown Austin
On March 1, Diagne drove into Austin’s entertainment district and opened fire on people gathered outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden.
Authorities identified the three victims as:
Savitha Shan, 21, a University of Texas student.
Ryder Harrington, 19, a Texas Tech University student.
Jorge Pederson, 30, the third victim who died from his injuries.
Although Musk referred to all three victims as students, publicly available reporting identifies two as college students.
Diagne was reportedly wearing clothing displaying religious and Iranian imagery, including the words “Property of Allah.”
The FBI initially investigated the possibility of a terrorism-related motive.
However, in its May 7 investigative update, the FBI concluded that Diagne acted alone and found no evidence of outside direction or radicalization. Investigators identified escalating violent behavior and personal grievances involving U.S. and Israeli military actions against Iran as contributing factors.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, one of the Court’s three liberals, took a swipe at her conservative colleagues on Tuesday, accusing the 6-3 majority of undermining American democracy and fueling political polarization by declining to police partisan gerrymandering.
Speaking Tuesday at the Catholic University of America’s law school in Washington, D.C., Kagan blasted conservative-backed rulings on congressional redistricting, voting rights, and campaign finance laws, arguing that the decisions have allowed political parties to manipulate election maps for partisan advantage.
According to Reuters, Kagan claimed the conservative majority had enabled what she described as a race to the bottom in congressional redistricting.
The Obama-appointed justice argued that the Court’s refusal to intervene in partisan gerrymandering disputes has contributed to an increasingly divided political landscape.
Kagan declared:
“Over the last couple of years especially, both political parties have been engaged in a race to the bottom in terms of doing these partisan gerrymanders, … making what I think is unfortunately a too polarized country even more so.”
Kagan went further, accusing the Court of disregarding the consequences of its own decisions.
According to the Associated Press, Kagan said the Court had blinded itself to the harmful effects its rulings have had on the American political system.
The remarks come as Republicans and Democrats engage in an increasingly bitter battle over congressional boundaries ahead of the November elections.
But there is a major constitutional issue at the center of Kagan’s complaint: Who should control America’s election maps, elected lawmakers or unelected federal judges?
Kagan’s criticism takes direct aim at the Supreme Court’s landmark 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause.
In that 5-4 ruling, the Court’s conservative majority determined that claims of excessive partisan gerrymandering present political questions that federal courts lack the constitutional authority and judicially manageable standards to resolve.
Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.
The decision did not declare all gerrymandering legal or eliminate state-level restrictions on redistricting.
Instead, the majority concluded that the Constitution places primary responsibility for congressional election regulations with state legislatures and Congress, while leaving room for state courts to enforce state-law restrictions.
Kagan strongly disagreed, joining the Court’s liberal wing in dissent.
The ruling drew a crucial distinction between partisan gerrymandering and unconstitutional racial discrimination in redistricting, which can still raise federal constitutional questions.
Kagan’s complaints were not limited to gerrymandering.
The liberal justice also criticized the Supreme Court’s recent decisions narrowing aspects of the Voting Rights Act and loosening restrictions on political campaign spending.
She argued that these rulings have weakened protections against political manipulation and made Americans increasingly cynical about the electoral process.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has taken a different position, emphasizing constitutional limits on race-based districting and First Amendment protections involving political spending.
Kagan also acknowledged that the conservative majority has ruled against President Donald Trump’s administration on major legal issues, including tariffs, birthright citizenship, and mail voting.
That acknowledgment complicates the familiar narrative that the conservative justices automatically side with the president.
