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HAWTHORNE, California — SpaceX, the rocket ship company led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has fired several of its employees in an open letter that exploded due to the colorful billionaire’s behavior, according to media reports.
Reports released Friday cited an email from Gwynne Shotwell, the president of SpaceX, who said the company had terminated its employees who had assembled and distributed the letter. The letter writers denounced Musk for his actions, which they described as “a source of frequent distraction and embarrassment for us, especially in recent weeks”.
The New York Times was the first to report the liquidation, based on information from three employees familiar with the situation. Employees were not named.
It’s unclear how many SpaceX employees lost their jobs, but Shotwell left no doubt that the company believed they had crossed an unacceptable line.
“The letter, the requests, and the overall process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated, and bullied and/or angry because the letter forced them to sign something that didn’t reflect their views,” Shotwell said in his email, according to the Times. “We have a lot of critical work to accomplish and we don’t need this kind of overly far-reaching activism.”
The firings took place Thursday—the same day that Musk first addressed his Twitter employees about his $44 billion deal to add this social media service to his business empire. The acquisition remains uncertain as Musk tries to determine whether Twitter is hiding the number of fake accounts on its platform.
As the Twitter drama unfolded, another report emerged that Musk paid a flight attendant $250,000 to foil a possible sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Musk denied the sexual harassment allegations, and Shotwell sent SpaceX employees an email last month saying he believed the accusations were false.
In recent weeks, Musk has roughly mocked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ appearance on Twitter, posting a poop emoji during an online discussion with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
The open letter criticizing Musk from SpaceX employees claimed that some of his tweets to his 98 million followers put the company in a bad light.
“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX – every tweet Elon posts is a de facto public statement of the company,” the open letter said. “It is very important to make it clear to our teams and potential talent pool that their messages do not reflect our business, mission or values.”
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