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SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk

nytimes.com

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

#381

Post by omega3 »

phailhaus wrote: post #336
axg11 wrote: post #110

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…

Everybody knows that he's within his rights to fire them. It just throws cold water on all his grandstanding about being a "free speech absolutist". EDIT: Everyone telling me that company employees are different from Twitter are missing the point. We know that. But he clearly doesn't care about free speech "absolutely" when he throws a fit that his employees are criticizing him.

You can believe in free speech and paying for the consequences of what is being said. These two aren't mutually exclusive.

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

#382

Post by pcmoney »

user_named wrote: post #144
axg11 wrote: post #110

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…

They critized Musk, factually. Musk is not their employer, SpaceX is, but you just proved their point since you believe Musk and SpaceX are one and the same.

They were fired for harassing their colleagues and wasting work time and resources.

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

#383

Post by nightski »

phailhaus wrote: post #336
axg11 wrote: post #110

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…

Everybody knows that he's within his rights to fire them. It just throws cold water on all his grandstanding about being a "free speech absolutist". EDIT: Everyone telling me that company employees are different from Twitter are missing the point. We know that. But he clearly doesn't care about free speech "absolutely" when he throws a fit that his employees are criticizing him.

Deciding not to pay you to say whatever you want has nothing to do with your ability to say it.

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

#384

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

logicalmonster wrote: post #223
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…

> His approach to remote-vs-in-office work is less that of a data-informed futurist and more that of an autocrat. Nobody can read minds of course, but I think it is smart to not always take people at face value and consider all of their motives in saying anything. Personally I think Elon Musk is probably strongly supporting working in the office for 2 reasons. (Obviously pure speculation) 1) Forcing an ultimatum is a…

Another relevent consideration here is that SpaceX and Tesla are both fundamentally manufacturing businesses, which developed their processes via rapid iteration. I assume that means the managers and engineers are expected to be closer to the factory floor than in other businesses. So WFH for Musk's businesses might actually be very impractical.

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

#385

Post by zzless »

deltaonefour wrote: post #274
reaperducer wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I think is finally giving people Elon fatigue is his politics. I don't care about Mr. Musk's politics. But I dumped all of my Tesla stock recently because of his increasingly erratic behavior. To me, it demonstrates an inability to make wise decisions. And I can't trust my money to people who can no longer reliably make wise decisions. He's impulsive, and entertaining to watch; but now I will do so from a distan…

This is actually bad investment strategy. Warren Buffet once made a shit load of money because of this. During a more conservative time... waaay back. A company was doing very well but the CEO had an affair. The public caught wind of the affair and the stock tanked, because people had your exact same philosophy. Those people cared about the behavior of the CEO while ignoring the metrics of the company. Warren Buffet…

Doesn't your example support his/her position though? Dump the stock now, wait till the price drops, buy at a reduced price ... profit! I know, timing the market and all that, but this seems like a sensible move now.

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

#387

Post by formerkrogemp »

When Musk started to spread his bullshit on Twitter, I immediately thought about how the high-profile engineers working for Tesla, SpaceX, etc, would feel about that. My friend works in a tech company composed of 90% engineers, although not that high-profile, still if a CEO would publicly voice all that crap, I’m sure many would seriously consider resigning. In the end, it’s not that difficult to find another job.

If I were a tech company recruiter now, I would 100% go shopping for musk companies’ employees right now…

As a recruiter, you could seriously poach some amazing talent just because Elon can’t keep his fucking mouth shut. They aren’t idiots over there, and Elon should realize that most of the people working for him are likely much, much, much smarter than he is.

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

#388

Post by modeless »

Clent wrote: post #102

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.

The gift of a bunch of employees who care more about activism than the work? This is not a gift I would ever want to receive.

I doubt this affects their ability to win contracts in the slightest. Their biggest competitors are all defense contractors, not exactly more sympathetic to causes like this...

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

#389

Post by variant »

axg11 wrote: post #110

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…

Yep. We would do well to more often remind ourselves that employment is an exercise in voluntary association.

These folks were unhappy with their working conditions. They're now free to find employ somewhere else that suits them better while others who want to be at SpaceX will replace them.

Markets are great!

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

#390

Post by [deleted] »

thepasswordis wrote: post #254

Good. According to Shotwells response they were basically harassing the rest of the staff and trying to get them to turn on the company. Fire them immediately . Name and shame them so that they have to explain this behavior to their next employer. This type of thing is so toxic and so abusive to everybody they try to suck into it.

[deleted]
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