Spacex fires staff over letter criticising Musk
THREE Spacex employees have been sacked after calling chief executive Elon Musk a “source of distraction and embarrassment” in an open letter.
The letter, which was first circulated on Wednesday and reported by tech website The Verge, criticised Mr Musk for his frequent tweets, saying his missives were “de facto public statement[s] by the company”.
Mr Musk is a heavy user of the social media site, which he is in the process of buying for $44bn (£35bn).
He uses Twitter to share corporate news but also to insult rivals, such as Bill Gates, and post memes.
His tweets have landed him in hot water with regulators and made him one of the most popular users on the site, with 98.4m followers. The letter said: “Elon’s behaviour in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks.”
In response, Spacex fired three employees who published the letter on a company-wide chat forum.
“The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/ or angry because the letter pressured them to sign on to something that did not reflect their views,” company president Gwynne Shotwell wrote in an allstaff email confirming the sackings, according to The New York Times. “We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”
Mr Musk, chief executive of Spacex and Tesla, has courted controversy by using Twitter to describe the US Stock Exchange Commission as the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission” and claiming he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420”, a reference to US cannabis culture. The SEC later fined him $20m for publishing misleading statements about Tesla.
Mr Musk has faced accusations of presiding over a hire-and-fire culture, which he denies.
A shareholder of Tesla filed a suit against Mr Musk and the Tesla board yesterday accusing them of presiding over a “toxic workplace culture” that allegedly caused “financial harm and irreparable damage to the company’s reputation”. Tesla has yet to respond to the lawsuit. Tesla and Spacex were contacted for comment.