Lockheed Martin: We’re Looking Into Reports We Gave Out Bonuses Based on Skin Color

A whistleblower at Lockheed Martin has come forward to Christopher Rufo claiming that annual bonuses at the company were based on skin color rather than performance in some case. The source is anonymous but the story suggests they brought with them evidence to back up this claim.

The story began in December 2022, when the whistleblower was preparing recommendations for the aeronautics division’s year-end bonuses. The whistleblower was proud of the work the team had done to calculate awards. But soon after the bonuses were submitted for approval, higher-ups told the whistleblower that there was a problem: the “Comp Adder” list, which named recipients of bonus compensation, had too many white employees on it.

Santiago Bulnes, a vice president who now leads engineering on Lockheed’s F-35 program, wrote an email to the whistleblower. “I got a call from [human resources director] La Wanda [Moorer] last night regarding diversity stats on comp adder,” Bulnes, who did not respond to a request for comment, said. “They took a run at getting your few approved and we’re told that we need to fit in the box. I asked her to send you the list of diversity names to simplify the task of finding the best in the group.”

Next, our source claims, officials in Lockheed’s human resources department made the demand explicit. One communication instructed the whistleblower to add more than a dozen minorities to the list and recommended removing an equal number of “non-minority” employees. The implication was clear—“increasing POC for Comp Adder will result in removing equal count of non-minority”—and the instructions were deliberate, recommending specific race swaps by manager. For example, for one team, human resources officials instructed the whistleblower to “increase POC 4 and decrease non-minority 4.”…

The whistleblower tried to protest this decision and filed an ethics complaint, arguing that the policy was unethical and could expose the company to legal liability, but management insisted. “Our HR counsel told me that while this may present business risk, it was the ‘less[e]r of two evils.’”

Rufo says the company kept a spreadsheet and justified this on the basis of EEOC compliance.

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. And they wrote it all down, even though it is illegal. pic.twitter.com/53FPc5mFDK

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 12, 2025

As mentioned above, the person apparently pushing this policy was human resources director La Wanda Moorer. The whistleblower asked her what would happen if the team couldn’t come up with enough minority candidates to give bonuses to and Moorer replied, “[T]he preference is for you to get there.” She also said, “We haven’t ever been in a situation where we haven’t gotten there,” which suggests to Rufo that this was not the first time this demand had been made.

Eventually, the whistleblower did get there. He or she swapped in 18 minority candidates for bonuses and swapped out 18 white candidates. The whistleblower filed an ethics complaint and a couple months later quit. They wrote a resignation letter which read (in part) “I, at the direction of Lockheed, have actively discriminated against higher performing individuals, denied them higher pay they earned, denied them the opportunity to be motivated as a top performer.”

Lockheed Martin has released a statement saying they are looking into it. “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,” they said.

BREAKING: Lockheed Martin has released a statement in response to my reporting about its racially discriminatory compensation practices. The company claims it is now a “meritocracy” and will “compensate any employees” who were victims.

This is not enough. We need prosecutions. pic.twitter.com/hwlXEpYjl8

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 12, 2025

Lockheed Martin isn’t admitting to anything here which is no surprise really because the behavior described above is not EEOC compliance it is violation of federal civil rights law. Paying people based solely on race is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And, depending on where this took place, it could also be a violation of state law. The head of the DOJ Civil Rights division has already noticed the story on X. She alerted the acting chair of the EEOC.

“IF” — doesn’t seem to be much if about it. Hope they act swiftly, if not I’m sure @andrealucasEEOC will have a view on this! https://t.co/Tqfcx4tZRH

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@HarmeetKDhillon) June 12, 2025

In addition to facing a possible federal investigation, the company could also be sued by the employees who suspect they were held back because of their race. That could turn into a very expensive civil lawsuit if this behavior goes back a few years and was widespread.

Meanwhile La Wanda Moorer has deleted her LinkedIn page.

BREAKING: Lockheed Martin human resources director La Wanda Moorer, who demanded that managers remove whites from the year-end bonus list and replace them with lower-performing minorities, has deleted her LinkedIn account. pic.twitter.com/tHQohkniT3

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 12, 2025

Finally, an unnamed White House official tells Rufo that Lockheed Martin is not a victim in all this. This person suggests the company was all in on the kind of anti-racist ideology that motivated this (alleged) behavior.

NEW: Following my report exposing Lockheed Martin’s discriminatory conduct, a senior White House official tells me that CEO Jim Taiclet is lying about his DEI policies and that Lockheed is, in fact, “the tip of the spear in implementing the Left’s anti-white racism campaign.” pic.twitter.com/t3G3VBYXdS

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 12, 2025