SpaceX spokesman John Taylor emailed me the following statement last night concerning a lawsuit alleging racist practices at the company:

“SpaceX rejects these allegations and will vigorously defend itself in court. At SpaceX, we don’t care about your gender, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, age or anything else of that nature—to succeed here, the only requirement is to work hard and produce outstanding results.

“Earlier this year SpaceX completed its annual review cycle and as a result of those reviews, approximately 4% of our workforce were let go. Given the ambitious goals of the company, the standards for work performance at SpaceX are very high. It is critical that all employees meet this standard.

“SpaceX is committed not only to providing an awesome work environment where employees do exciting and meaningful work, but also to ensuring that everyone pulls their own weight and is held accountable for failing to do so. Unfortunately some people who succeed at other companies do not succeed here.

“Developing the technology to put human life on Mars requires the best efforts of a uniquely talented team. SpaceX continues to seek out the best and brightest individuals across all disciplines, with an expected net positive employee growth in 2014 of approximately 20 percent.”