What we know about claims Lockheed Martin replaced white employees on year-end bonus list with non-white colleagues

In June 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that aerospace company Lockheed Martin ordered managers to replace the names of white employees with those of ethnic minorities on an end-of-year bonus list.

(X user @BasedSavannah)

One X user wrote: “WHY would @LockheedMartin knowingly ALLOW their Human Resources Director to remove whites from the year-end bonus list and replace them with lower performing minorities. BLATANT civil rights violations and hateful racism. This should cost them BILLIONS.”

The claim also appeared on Facebook (archived) and Reddit (archived).

It originated from a report in City Journal, a publication by the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. The City Journal report was based on accounts from an anonymous whistleblower and excerpts from company emails provided by this source. Snopes does not use anonymous sources, nor do we rely on reports that rely on them. Snopes has not independently confirmed the account from the anonymous source City Journal used for its report, nor have we verified the authenticity of the correspondence included.

In a statement posted on its website on June 12, the date City Journal published its report, Lockheed Martin said the company was a “meritocracy” and that: “The allegations as reported raise concerns that we are taking seriously and are investigating. In the event that we determine there was any wrongdoing, we intend to appropriately compensate any employees who were adversely affected and will take decisive action to address any misconduct.”

We reached out to Christopher Rufo, the author of the City Journal report, for any additional context on his source and how he established the source to be genuine. 

We also reached out to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces laws against workplace discrimination in the U.S., to confirm whether Lockheed Martin was covered by the laws it enforces and whether the EEOC had received any complaints relating to City Journal’s reporting. An EEOC spokesperson said they could not comment on whether the commission had received such complaints.

The anonymous source told City Journal they had submitted a list of names to be considered for end-of-year bonuses to upper management at Lockheed Martin in December 2022. However, according to correspondence (archived) seen (archived) and posted (archived) by Rufo, a human resources director named La Wanda Moorer asked the source to add “POC” employees (a common abbreviation for people of color) to the “Comp Adder,” a list of employees to receive end of year bonuses, and remove an equivalent number of white employees.

City Journal reported that the anonymous source had attempted to push back but ultimately “‘swapped’ 18 whites for 18 minorities, solely on the basis of race” on the list.

According to the City Journal report, the anonymous source since resigned from Lockheed Martin, citing the forced name swap in their resignation letter.

Questions swirl around legality of alleged ‘swapping’

City Journal’s report reached a wide audience on X, with platform owner Elon Musk commenting (archived) on a post by Rufo that “This is illegal.”

In the U.S., the EEOC enforces laws against job discrimination and harassment. These laws include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

According to Title VII, the EEOC wrote: “In order to allege a colorable claim of discrimination, workers only need to show ‘some injury’ or ‘some harm’ affecting their ‘terms, conditions, or privileges’ of employment.” An EEOC spokesperson elaborated that “terms, conditions, or privileges” could include compensation.

Generally, the EEOC said on its website, private businesses like Lockheed Martin are covered by the laws the commission enforces if they have more than 15 employees for at least 20 calendar weeks per year.

Successful complaints brought through the EEOC result in remedies such as placing the victim of discrimination “in the same position (or nearly the same) that he or she would have been if the discrimination never occurred.”

Remedies may also include compensatory damages to the victim and punitive damages to the employer.

It was unclear at the time of this writing whether any employees at Lockheed Martin had sought or been awarded remedies for being “swapped” off a year-end bonus list. The EEOC newsroom, where the commission publishes lawsuits and results relating to complaints, contained 10 listings regarding Lockheed Martin dating back to 1996 at the time of this writing, but none since 2020.

DEI at Lockheed Martin

According to Lockheed Martin, the “majority” of the company’s business is with the U.S. Department of Defense and other U.S. government agencies.

City Journal previously reported that senior Lockheed Martin employees attended a “three-day diversity-training program aimed at deconstructing their ‘white male culture’ and encouraging them to atone for their ‘white male privilege'” in 2020, during the first Trump presidency.

However, the company was clearly attentive to the change in tone around DEI measures under the second Trump administration. On Jan. 23, 2025, Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it was “taking immediate action to ensure continued compliance and full alignment with President Trump’s recent executive order. We will not have goals or incentives based on demographic representation or Affirmative Action Plans.”

On May 22, 2025, the company added to the previous statement that it had “permanently sunset” its “Business Resource Groups and Employee Networks organized around demographics, identities or advocacy.”

Sources:

“About Us.” Lockheed Martin, https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/who-we-are.html. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“City Journal.” Manhattan Institute, https://manhattan.institute/city-journal.

“Coverage of Business/Private Employers.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/coverage-businessprivate-employers. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“DEI Executive Order.” Lockheed Martin, https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/statements-speeches/2025/statement-dei-executive-order.html. Accessed 13 June 2025.

@elonmusk. “This Is Illegal.” X, 12 June 2025, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1933278871463571512.

“Filing a Complaint.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/youth/filing-complaint. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“Newsroom.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/search. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“Race/Color Discrimination.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/youth/racecolor-discrimination. Accessed 13 June 2025.

@realchrisrufo. Disgusting: Lockheed Martin Keeps a Spreadsheet of Employees by Race, Then Instructs Managers Precisely How Many Whites They Must Eliminate from the Bonus List, Even If Those Employees Performed Better than Their Peers. 12 June 2025, https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1933213827296047461.

—. “Immediately Afterwards, a Human Resources Manager Was More Explicit, Demanding That the Team Remove Whites from the List and Replace Them with Minorities, Admitting That ‘Increasing POC for Comp Adder Will Result in Removing Equal Count of Non-Minority.'” X, 12 June 2025, https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1933189664598585735.

—. “They Actually Wrote This Down.” X, 12 June 2025, https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1933204154794848319.

“Remedies For Employment Discrimination.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/remedies-employment-discrimination. Accessed 13 June 2025.

Rufo, Christopher F. “The Woke-Industrial Complex.” City Journal, https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-woke-industrial-complex. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“Statement on Past Compensation Practices.” Lockheed Martin, https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/statements-speeches/2025/statement-on-past-compensation-practices.html. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“What You Should Know About DEI-Related Discrimination at Work.” US EEOC, https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-dei-related-discrimination-work. Accessed 13 June 2025.

“Whistleblower: Lockheed Martin Awarded Bonuses Based on Race.” City Journal, https://www.city-journal.org/article/lockheed-martin-civil-rights-law-bonuses-race-merit. Accessed 13 June 2025.