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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

#481

Post by misiti3780 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #184
onelovetwo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's at his lowest point in the eyes of the media (which is how most of us see the world) but hes actually at the highest point in his career and achievements. Tesla is about to explode in production with their "biggest building in the world factory" in texas, berlin and china. SpaceX is about to achieve the holy grail of the space industry (an affordable and reusable rocket) not to mention Starlink.

Tesla has always been "about to explode" in one way or another. When will people realize that manufacturing businesses, when they are limited by property and equipment, are slow-burning? Also, "reusable" doesn't matter as much as "affordable" for rockets. I am waiting for one of the smaller companies with a dirt cheap rocket to eat SpaceX's lunch.

they are growing 50% y/o/y. that is explosive growth.

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

#482

Post by j_walter »

ctvo wrote: post #465
j_walter wrote: post #453

Based on what management said it wasn't necessarily what was in the letter, but the behavior surrounding the formation of the letter and soliciting people to sign it. Basically they were fired for using company resources for personal use and intimidation of their peers.

> Basically they were fired for using company resources for personal use and intimidation of their peers. Knowing that this would be leaked and make news, they could have framed the letter to all employees in the best possible way for the company (both PR and HR). Let's hold out and see what SpaceX insiders and the fired employees actually say.

No doubt they could have done it better, but all we know right now is the contents of the letter. What we don't know is how they went about soliciting signatures and so called surveys of employees (likely management won't release this detailed information either). The fired employees won't tell you what really happened...more than likely they will play the victims in this. The details may only come out once a lawsuit is filed.

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

#483

Post by Thaxll »

mulcahey wrote: post #270
Thaxll wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. Get humans to the Moon, if not to Mars I think there is a misconception here, SpaceX does not send anyone to space, NASA, ESA etc .. does. SpaceX builds rockets that's it, they don't train astronaut or have a program for space exploration or missions.

This is incorrect. Inspiration4 sent astronauts they trained. This was largely true for the Axiom mission as well, and will be for the Polaris missions.

Well if you call 4month training "astronauts", those kind of training won't get anyone on the moon or on mars.

I think that's why they call them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_astronaut

To me it's more space tourism that anything else, there is a reason why it takes years to train astronauts.

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

#484

Post by effingwewt »

dangerface wrote: post #433
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given this is HN, I'm just mildly curious about how people who knew Musk 15-20 years ago view him now. I mean, I know this is tangential, but pg had an essay talking about what a bad idea it was that Musk demanded Windows over Linux when Musk ran PayPal - I just got the sense that pg was never a fan. Do folks view this as "this is an ambitious, hardworking genius whose lack of social constraints due to his success is…

I think people are just upset because he is rich I noticed the amount of hatred for him seems to be directly correlated with how much money he has. If he didn't have money people would just see him as a memey nerd.

Ah, yes- behold all of the comments in this thread that have no critiques of Musk other than $!

And incidentally, yes- many poor people despise the rich, just as most rich people despise the poor.

Mamy are the critiques of Musk here, nowhere did I read it was because he's hoarding money.

Edit to add- rich people change laws and construction to benefit them, they can displace and ruin the lives of the poor with a thought. They have all the power and most of the money. They live in gated communities far out of sight of the working class. They literally have an embarrassment of riches while people die around them. There is a very good reason the affluent only live amongst each other in fancy gated communities.

People don't hate the rich because they are rich, it's because of the impact they have on the lives of those without means.

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

#485

Post by Bud »

mft_ wrote: post #458
JaimeThompson wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they actually believed his statements regarding unlimited free speech. It's not backed by evidence but SpaceX does attract dreamers.

I don’t think any definition of free speech guarantees total freedom from repercussions?

Actually, about half of the political spectrum of the US believes (or steadfastly pretends to believe) that this is precisely what "free speech" means.

I guess they haven't processed the famous XKCD on this issue.

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

#488

Post by taylodl »

I thought Elon Musk was being hailed as the champion of "free speech?" Hmmm. Maybe not.

Regardless of what people say their actions always betray them. I have no idea why people idolize Elon Musk when he has repeatedly shown us what he is. Then again the same is true for Donald Trump. I honestly don't understand it.

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

#489

Post by vkou »

blitzar wrote: post #2

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently described himself as a "free speech absolutist."

Free speech absolutists are rarely consistent about absolutism within their own fiefdoms.

As far as I can tell, the only intellectual consistency within that movement is that the people pushing it want to be allowed to say anything they want anywhere they want, without any consequences.

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

#490

Post by cmsonger »

rossdavidh wrote: post #337

I'm picturing Apple employees writing an open letter criticizing Steve Jobs and saying they don't want him to be the face of the company, or Amazon employees saying they don't want Jeff Bezos to be the image of the company, or GE employees saying they don't want Jack Welch to be tarnishing the brand of the company, or...just about any other big corporation. The CEO's job involves, among other things, being the public…

This seems right to me, though I will observe that if you joined an Elon Musk company 5 years ago, then you were joining a company whose head presented a very different public persona than he does now. It's an understandable situation that some folks ended up loving a company but finding the CEO's 2022 public persona objectionable and diminishing of the company.

Given the choice between "just leave" or "state my concerns about the company I believed in", I might do the latter. What does one have to lose in that case?

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