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SpaceX fired employees who helped coordinate an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk’s behavior on Twitter and other public forums.
In an email to employees on Thursday, reviewed by The Washington Post, rocket company’s president Gwyn Shotwell said the letter “made employees feel uncomfortable, scared and harassed” and forced them to sign a document that did not reflect their views.
She said the workers who coordinated the efforts had been suspended, but did not specify how many. The New York Times was the first to report the shots.
The letter called Musk’s behavior “a common source of distraction and embarrassment.” This comes when the Tesla billionaire is in the midst of high-ranking efforts to acquire Twitter and after a report in Business Insider claims to have sexually harassed a flight attendant on a corporate plane, allegations that Musk denounced as a “politically motivated hit” were intended to violate his $ 44 billion bid for the social media platform. The Post failed to verify these allegations.
Musk and his companies also received a lawsuit Thursday alleging investor fraud as part of a scheme to promote the cryptocurrency dogecoin. The complaint alleges that Musk was part of a “pumping and dumping” racket that prompted him to move dogecoin to attract more investors and then quickly sell off his assets when their value peaked, lowering the rest. of the value of the currency.
In recent weeks, Musk has used his Twitter account to praise right-wing political figures, stimulate cryptocurrency and accuse the media of liberal bias, while sharing updates on SpaceX’s progress towards several launches. His account also tweeted and retweeted obscene jokes and attacked liberal politicians, including the Republic of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.).
Shotwell told officials that the concerns raised in the letter threatened to upset SpaceX’s focus on several key tasks.
“We have 3 launches in 37 hours for critical satellites this weekend, we have to support the astronauts we delivered to [International Space Station] and take the cargo dragon [SpaceX’s unmanned flight capsule] “We are back in flight readiness and after receiving environmental approval earlier this week, we are on the verge of the first attempt to launch Starship into orbit,” Shotwell said.
“We have too much critical work to do and there is no need for this kind of over-activism – our current leadership team is more committed to ensuring we have a great and ever-improving work environment than anyone I’ve seen in my 35-year career. ”
She added that “covering thousands of people across the company” with requests to sign the letter “does not show the strong judgment needed to work in this very challenging space transport sector”.
NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The open letter, the draft of which was received by The Post, asked colleagues to sign by name or anonymously. It also seems to provide a web platform for employees to send confidential stories of personal experiences to the company and encourages employees to discuss the letter with their executives at upcoming meetings.
The letter called on leaders to “publicly draw attention to and condemn Elon’s harmful behavior on Twitter.”
“SpaceX needs to be quickly and explicitly separated from Elon’s personal brand,” the draft said.
“The collaboration we need to make life multiplanetary is incompatible with a culture that treats employees as consumables,” it said later. “Our unique position requires us to consider how our actions today will shape the experience of people outside our planet. The culture we nurture now, the culture we aim to bring to Mars and beyond? “
In his email, Shotwell seems to offer a direct response to this criticism: “Please stay focused on SpaceX’s mission and use your time to do your best.” That’s how we get to Mars. “
Shotwell was one of the company’s earliest employees, a dynamic force that helped shape SpaceX more than anyone but Musk. As president and chief operating officer, she runs much of her day-to-day business and is known to smooth relations with NASA and other customers during turbulent times.
Following accusations of sexual harassment against Musk, Shotwell defended him in an email to officials. “Personally, I think the allegations are false; “Not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and have never seen or heard anything like this,” she wrote.
Musk’s behavior has caused him problems before. In 2018, after he took marijuana and sipped whiskey in a Joe Rogan podcast, NASA commissioned an assessment of the company’s cultural safety.
The then NASA administrator Jim Braidenstein was angry and ordered a review of the company’s culture and safety procedures.
“If I see something that is inappropriate, my main concern is what culture has led to this inappropriateness and whether NASA is involved,” he told The Post at the time. “As an agency, we not only manage ourselves, but also our contractors. We need to show the American public that when we put an astronaut on a rocket, they will be safe. “
The space agency audited the company, which a senior NASA official at the time called “quite invasive,” interviewing hundreds of employees at each level and reviewing documents. NASA did not release its findings, but Shotwell told reporters at the time that “the results are very positive.”
A former senior NASA official said the allegation of sexual abuse did not appear in the review and that NASA management was unaware of it.
On Thursday, Musk met with Twitter staff for the first time in a rally, which again angered employees there, The Post reported. Musk arrived late for the meeting and dialed remotely on what looked like a cell phone. He expressed a desire to bring the more brutal workplace environment of Tesla and SpaceX to Twitter when the merger is over.
Asked if he believed in corporate governance as “meritocracy”, Musk said: “If someone does things great, I love them. If not, why are they in the company? “
Shotwell has repeatedly said that the company does not tolerate discrimination or harassment and that it personally reviews complaints that employees are encouraged to file in an anonymous box. But SpaceX has always been a very demanding place to work, and many employees believe the company needs to do more to promote a healthier environment.
Before employees published the letter this week, a former employee told The Post that SpaceX was not doing enough to curb inappropriate behavior and that it was sometimes fueled by Musk’s actions.
“I believe the company needs to do more,” the former employee said. “The lack of a CEO who did not say this behavior is unacceptable encourages people. And when you know who Elon is and you know that the company will protect the company, and you start to see Elon’s fan base, you say, “I’m not going to talk about that.”
With the dismissal of SpaceX employees, at least an employee of the space industry saw an opportunity. Alan Chen, a top engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, retweeted news of the layoffs in connection with JPL’s vacancy page.
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