6 ms·

SpaceX Employees Say They Were Fired for Speaking Up About Elon Musk

14 points by mhoad 4y ago

martin1b 4y ago
Publicly criticizing the CEO of where you work is going to land you in hot water wherever you go. Any 2nd grader knows that. Learn to submit your grievances the proper way or leave the company.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Yeah but when the CEO is a self proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, it’s rich to hear that he’s created an environment where free speech is chilled due to looming punishments for exercising said speech.
clouddrover 4y ago
> “SpaceX is Elon and Elon is SpaceX,” the two recalled hearing Mr. Edwards declare. > The next week, one employee was told by his manager, who had eagerly shared the open letter with co-workers, to choose between his workplace concerns and getting to Mars Sounds like less of a company and more of a cult.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Convincing people to work for less (or no) compensation, and/or under crummier conditions - because it is for something which they believe in - is arguably older than money. And there are plenty of perfectly sane & reasonable people who don't find a "good pay for cushy work" job to be very fulfilling, longer-term. As usual, the devil's in the details.
bell-cot 4y ago
Um...so? I am not against youthful idealism, and no fan of Elan's "issues"...but is there any major company where calling for the company to publicly criticize its own alpha male CEO/~owner would end well? I'm thinking "no". (Yeah, I'd bet that SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell is at least as unhappy with Elan as the letter-writing kids are. But she also has a large rocket company to run. And I'm thinking that a big, youthful anti-Elan rebellion in the ranks would be pretty incompatible with SpaceX continuing to function well as a rocket company.)
- mhoad 4y ago
  Not sure if you actually read any of this but “um… so?” would be a weird response to this for example. “one employee was told by his manager, who had eagerly shared the open letter [about sexual harassment by Elon and others] with co-workers, to choose between his workplace concerns and getting to Mars”
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    FWIW - my "um...so?" was a cynical quip: "Speaking up to say bad things about the big boss did not end well for the little people? That has been normal for the past 10...100...1000...10000 or so years, hasn't it?"
- foxyv 4y ago
  One time I was a little too honest on an anonymous survey and had to keep my head down because the CEO was looking for "The person who wrote that!" Lesson learned, when they say anonymous they don't mean anonymous and when they want honesty they don't want honesty.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Depending upon the boss, there can be a delicate art to saying more-honest, less-flattering things.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Well as the article says there are actually laws against this. Maybe your "uh so?" is inappropriate, it definitely is victim blaming.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    I suspect that there are also laws against Russian soldiers planting land mines in Ukraine. If a literate, legal adult in Ukraine walked through a clearly marked Russian minefield - because they had a legal right to do so, and the Russians were morally in the wrong - how would you regard that behavior?

14 points by mhoad 4y ago

Publicly criticizing the CEO of where you work is going to land you in hot water wherever you go. Any 2nd grader knows that. Learn to submit your grievances the proper way or leave the company.

ModernMech 4y ago
Yeah but when the CEO is a self proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, it’s rich to hear that he’s created an environment where free speech is chilled due to looming punishments for exercising said speech.

clouddrover 4y ago

> “SpaceX is Elon and Elon is SpaceX,” the two recalled hearing Mr. Edwards declare. > The next week, one employee was told by his manager, who had eagerly shared the open letter with co-workers, to choose between his workplace concerns and getting to Mars Sounds like less of a company and more of a cult.

bell-cot 4y ago
Convincing people to work for less (or no) compensation, and/or under crummier conditions - because it is for something which they believe in - is arguably older than money. And there are plenty of perfectly sane & reasonable people who don't find a "good pay for cushy work" job to be very fulfilling, longer-term. As usual, the devil's in the details.

bell-cot 4y ago

Um...so? I am not against youthful idealism, and no fan of Elan's "issues"...but is there any major company where calling for the company to publicly criticize its own alpha male CEO/~owner would end well? I'm thinking "no". (Yeah, I'd bet that SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell is at least as unhappy with Elan as the letter-writing kids are. But she also has a large rocket company to run. And I'm thinking that a big, youthful anti-Elan rebellion in the ranks would be pretty incompatible with SpaceX continuing to function well as a rocket company.)

mhoad 4y ago
Not sure if you actually read any of this but “um… so?” would be a weird response to this for example. “one employee was told by his manager, who had eagerly shared the open letter [about sexual harassment by Elon and others] with co-workers, to choose between his workplace concerns and getting to Mars”
- bell-cot 4y ago
  FWIW - my "um...so?" was a cynical quip: "Speaking up to say bad things about the big boss did not end well for the little people? That has been normal for the past 10...100...1000...10000 or so years, hasn't it?"
foxyv 4y ago
One time I was a little too honest on an anonymous survey and had to keep my head down because the CEO was looking for "The person who wrote that!" Lesson learned, when they say anonymous they don't mean anonymous and when they want honesty they don't want honesty.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Depending upon the boss, there can be a delicate art to saying more-honest, less-flattering things.
cycomanic 4y ago
Well as the article says there are actually laws against this. Maybe your "uh so?" is inappropriate, it definitely is victim blaming.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  I suspect that there are also laws against Russian soldiers planting land mines in Ukraine. If a literate, legal adult in Ukraine walked through a clearly marked Russian minefield - because they had a legal right to do so, and the Russians were morally in the wrong - how would you regard that behavior?