SpaceX Fires Employees Who Dared Question Musk's Tweets

Musk doesn't take criticism very well. When employees of his company called his behavior a distraction and embarrassment, you can see where this is headed.

The New York Times reported that the employees who helped write the open letter were fired by the company. The employee was fired on Thursday after The Verge broke the story about the letter.

In an internal email obtained by the Times, Gwynne Shotwell wrote that the company had fired a number of employees because of their critique of their CEO. She said that the letter made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated, and bullied, since it apparently pressured them to sign something that didn't reflect their views.

It is not clear how many were fired. Three employees spoke to the Times but did not reveal their jobs. Staff don't stand up for their boss. An employee who helped write the letter called bull on Shotwell's reasoning told The Verge that they spent a month soliciting feedback from their colleagues.

The company rarely responds to any press inquiries.

According to Shotwell, the company has a lot of work to do, and can't afford this kind of activism. The company wants to have its first launch ready by the end of the month. Shotwell said in her email that this is how we will get to Mars.

Since Musk is the company's CEO and prime spokesman, every message he sends is a public statement, according to the employees' letter. When Musk calls a British cave explorer a pedo guy or downplays the severity of covid early on in the epidemic, the employees say it reflects back on them.

The letter writers said that the company should make sure that there are ways for employees to report bad behavior and make sure that those responsible for a bad working environment are punished.

Shotwell has played for Musk before. The president of the company told staff that the allegations of sexual harassment against the CEO were not true. It was out of character for Musk to do that. The COO did not deny the deal.

The CEO of the company was accused of exposing his penis to an employee, but he denied it, and later used it in one of his notorious statements.

Musk doesn't want his employees to stray. The documents show that Musk's other company monitored workers' social media activity. Despite the push for work-from- home policies in the tech world, most of the staff must work 40 hours a week.