A Newport Beach resident is suing Hyundai Motor and the air taxi startup Supernal it backs, accusing them of retaliation after she complained about alleged investor deception and gender discrimination. <\/p>\n
Diana Cooper, who joined Supernal in 2020 as the company\u2019s sixth employee, says she was harassed, marginalized and underpaid, according to a complaint filed Oct. 17 with the Superior Court of California.<\/p>\n
One of several young companies racing to achieve electric air mobility in California, Supernal is backed by Hyundai and affiliated with Hyundai Motor America. The Irvine-based company is developing a battery-powered, vertical takeoff and landing air taxi.<\/p>\n
Shortly after launching, Supernal recruited Cooper for her expertise in emerging aviation policy. <\/p>\n
Supernal retaliated against Cooper when she raised alarms about misleading investors, the lawsuit said. In 2023, Cooper shared concerns that Supernal was advertising an unrealistic entry timeline for its technology.<\/p>\n
The case also says she complained about the \u201cpervasive, misogynistic culture\u201d at the company, where executives made offensive remarks about hiring \u201c$5,000 hookers\u201d for clients. <\/p>\n
The retaliation against Cooper was \u201cswift and systemic,\u201d her lawyers wrote. Cooper was excluded from meetings with Hyundai executives and was barred from traveling to Hyundai\u2019s headquarters in South Korea. <\/p>\n
Also in 2023, Cooper and other senior female employees were expelled from the company\u2019s quarterly business review meeting, according to the complaint. When Cooper raised concerns over the exclusions, Hyundai Motor\u2019s chief financial officer said the company \u201cdoesn\u2019t care about diversity, equity and inclusion.\u201d <\/p>\n
Cooper faced other harassment from colleagues, including comments about her body, the complaint said, and an incident in which a male colleague showed Cooper a video of him having sex.<\/p>\n
During her time at Supernal, Cooper said, she was underpaid compared with her male colleagues and was persuaded to relocate from Washington, D.C., to Newport Beach with false promises of a promotion. <\/p>\n
After Cooper\u2019s leadership role at Supernal was stripped away in April 2025, she reported widespread mismanagement and unethical conduct at Supernal directly to Hyundai Motor\u2019s executive chairman. <\/p>\n
Hyundai opened an investigation into Cooper\u2019s claims but did not offer any protection from retaliation, according to the case. <\/p>\n
There was later a 3\u00bd-month legal investigation into conduct at Supernal, which led to the firing of Supernal\u2019s chief executive and chief technology officer. <\/p>\n
Hyundai Motor said that requests for comment could be directed to Supernal. A spokesperson for Supernal said the company had no statement on the matter. <\/p>\n
Cooper remains on medical leave after suffering severe emotional distress stemming from Supernal\u2019s actions, the lawsuit said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Newport Beach resident is suing Hyundai Motor and the air taxi startup Supernal it backs, accusing them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[27004,27007,1582,1804,729,3413,27001,27008,27005,18218,27003,27009,27006,48,52,51,47,50,49,16973,27002],"class_list":["post-39318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california-lawsuit","tag-chief-financial-officer","tag-colleague","tag-company","tag-complaint","tag-concern","tag-diana-cooper","tag-executive","tag-gender-discrimination","tag-hyundai","tag-hyundai-motor","tag-investor-deception","tag-irvine-air-taxi-startup","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-retaliation","tag-supernal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}