SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#101

Post by kortilla » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #69

uejfiweun wrote: post #18

Here's my unpopular opinion - good riddance. It's not a free speech issue because SpaceX isn't a public square. It's a company, and companies are top down. If these employees are at Musk's company, then they had better be prepared to play by Musk's rules, and they did the exact opposite, essentially leading a mutiny against the boss and sowing discord within the company in the process. SpaceX isn't an activist organi…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Cool cool cool, tech bros straight up rejecting reports of sexual assaults and publicly calling it a lie

Are you calling Gwynne Shotwell a tech bro? That’s her stance.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#102

Post by Clent » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

This company survives on public funding via NASA. This may be the biggest gift they could have given to their competitors.

No one will care if their competitors have similar issues, SpaceX was sold as different and the illusion of that is fading.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#103

Post by leesec » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

nocoolnametom wrote: post #97

Musk may end up being the most influential person to: 1. Electrify our vehicular infrastructure 2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars 3. Accelerate the unionization of Silicon Valley tech workers His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Just as he's loudly supporting public free speech as long as it's his speech, I predict within a few months…

Why would companies be democratic? That would be an extreme historical rarity

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#104

Post by fnimick » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #99

Ouch given that there were some valid proposals But also valid if people felt pressures to join in on employee activism they don't care about, I’ve seen that trend and I’m totally find curb stomping that whole mentality. I can empathize with the lack of employee power in the US that could lead one to these outcomes, there are other ways (that may not be available to those employees or in the US at all) For Shotwell,…

"I'm totally fine curb stomping [employee activism]"

I knew HN skewed toward tech-bro libertarianism, but this is a bit much even for that.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#105

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

nocoolnametom wrote: post #97

Musk may end up being the most influential person to: 1. Electrify our vehicular infrastructure 2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars 3. Accelerate the unionization of Silicon Valley tech workers His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Just as he's loudly supporting public free speech as long as it's his speech, I predict within a few months…

What's certain is that Musk is going to mobilize increasing amounts of resistance as he gets more aggressive.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#106

Post by ekianjo » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

pbasista wrote: post #68

koheripbal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Activist employees are toxic to company culture. We created a rule that politics and religion were not appropriate topics at work. A couple of people quit in response, and morale improved dramatically.

> Activist employees This is a broad term that different people might understand differently. Please define it first, then use it. > politics and religion This is off-topic. The mentioned discussions and disagreements at SpaceX were unrelated to these matters. In general, it is in my opinion dangerous to say that an opinion different than the one of the boss is unwelcome at a company. This is how cults and autocracie…

> dangerous to say that an opinion different than the one of the boss is unwelcome at a company

That's not what seemed to have happened here. Basically a bunch of employees said they were embarrassed by Musk's behavior. It's like saying the CEO is a clown. If you expect to still have a job after expressing publicly such opinions, well that's very naive.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#107

Post by Tepix » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

nocoolnametom wrote: post #97

Musk may end up being the most influential person to: 1. Electrify our vehicular infrastructure 2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars 3. Accelerate the unionization of Silicon Valley tech workers His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Just as he's loudly supporting public free speech as long as it's his speech, I predict within a few months…

Are the people working at SpaceX and Tesla "Silicon Valley tech workers"? I think most of them aren't.

> he'll be loudly proclaiming his support of democracy

Unlikely, given his dependence on China - he'll stay quiet, just like Tim Cook does at Apple.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#108

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #100

Does Elon Musk always ask himself “ok what’s the most petty/childish/immature response I can produce for this situation?” I’m not sure what’s actually wrong with him or if it’s at all clinical or just the billionaire disease of being surrounded by people who agree with you for too long. But I get a feeling there is something a bit off with his behavior and/or mental health, and that it’s been getting worse lately. I…

Some people get really mean when they get senile, particularly if they suffered from anxiety disorders or abused alcohol.

It's why home care workers never wear necklaces because they could try to strangle you with one.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#109

Post by ekianjo » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

wallaBBB wrote: post #55

uejfiweun wrote: post #18

Here's my unpopular opinion - good riddance. It's not a free speech issue because SpaceX isn't a public square. It's a company, and companies are top down. If these employees are at Musk's company, then they had better be prepared to play by Musk's rules, and they did the exact opposite, essentially leading a mutiny against the boss and sowing discord within the company in the process. SpaceX isn't an activist organi…

Generally OK, but I'm not sure if we should have different perspective for SpaceX considering it's funded by taxpayers' money, it's not out there competing in the free market...

> it's funded by taxpayers' money,

Its getting taxpayers money because the official money hole called the NASA can't manage to launch anything in space anymore.

Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

#110

Post by axg11 » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter. Criticize internally all you want, and influence the changes that you want to see happen. Employment is a two-way relationship. If you don't like your employer, you are free to leave. If they don't like you, they are free to fire you (within legal bounds). Publishing an openly critical letter and signing it is a quick way to get your employer to not like you.