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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

#601

Post by memish »

cratermoon wrote: post #570
memish wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX is the most ambitious company on Earth, working toward the goal of making humans a multi-planetary species. Their orders are to get to Mars. Employees that are bikeshedding, sowing internal discord, engaging in mutiny, are not working toward the goal and in fact actively hindering it. That's all the reason needed to prune them from the otherwise focused and ambitious team.

But Elon's hyperbolic tweets and offensive behavior don't actively hinder getting to Mars? I mean, he's the guy running the company, you'd think what he says and does would have a lot more influence over the success or failure of the company's goals.

Whether they are offensive is a personal opinion and it's fully your choice whether to take offense.

Personally I don't. I also don't take offense at anything Chris Rock or Ricky Gervais says. Others do take offense to what they say. That's their choice, their opinion, and not one that can or should be enforced on others.

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

#603

Post by potatototoo99 »

anonporridge wrote: post #588
mc32 wrote: post #532

I mean, this whole bruhaha was spearheaded by five (5!) people. Articles were presenting this as if it had been representative of a larger portion of the workforce there. I think companies are realizing "activist" workers are a disruption that suck productivity from a company and are taking steps to dial that down, including progressive stalwarts like Netflix.

Serious question, why wouldn't that include a CEO who is increasingly making public political commentary? I agree that activist workers are a problem for productivity, but the same could be said for activist CEOs.

Musk's outspoken behavior is probably a big part of the reason his companies are so valuable.

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

#604

Post by femiagbabiaka »

bko wrote: post #579
HillRat wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even so, they're not protected against being fired -- circulating an internal letter criticizing leadership is, in a right to work state without existing workplace union agreements and outside of a whistleblower or other protected situation, enough to get you fired, though not fired for cause. Are the optics bad? Yes. Is it indicative that "free speech absolutist" Musk believes your right to speech ends where his fee…

What other organization wouldn't let go of someone under these circumstances? Are there any employees that openly, pulicaly and very vocally criticize their leadership Imagine working with someone like this? If you've been in an organization with people are constantly getting into flame wars about political issues, its incredibly distracting to those that want to get work done. Some people buy the whole "we're a fami…

> What other organization wouldn't let go of someone under these circumstances?

Any organization that's worth working at, obviously. And there are plenty of them.

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

#605

Post by aeternum »

the_only_law wrote: post #457
hunterb123 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> It can't be good working conditions to have a small group of people playing victim and antagonizing others So you're saying musk should step down?

He's been tweeting random memes and joke content for many years. The only thing that changed recently is he said he might vote Rep rather than Dem.

Musk was a fool for bringing politics into this. But its also pretty dishonest for employees to claim to feel intimidated and bullied just because he's considering endorsing a different political party.

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

#606

Post by blitzar »

kick_in_the_dor wrote: post #524
daenz wrote: post #118

>The letter asked SpaceX management to publicly separate the company from Mr. Musk’s personal brand, and to take steps to address what it said was a gap between SpaceX’s stated values and its current systems and company culture. >“Blanketing thousands of people across the company with repeated unsolicited emails and asking them to sign letters and fill out unsponsored surveys during the work day is not acceptable,” S…

Lol @ "Using company email/internal message boards" == "Hijacking internal systems." Definitely not biased at all.

Never sending another "unsolicited" email or slack message at work ever again for fear of being accused of "Hijacking internal systems" to ask Johnson for an update on the sales report.

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

#608

Post by shakes_mcjunkie »

memish wrote: post #556
toomanyrichies wrote: post #434

To those arguing that this letter is tantamount to insubordination and is therefore a fireable offense: “Insubordination (noun)- refusing to obey orders from someone in authority.” [1] Unless they had received direct orders not to criticize Musk at all, internally or externally, they are not guilty of refusing to obey orders. And if they had received such orders, that only adds to Musk’s burgeoning reputation for pet…

SpaceX is the most ambitious company on Earth, working toward the goal of making humans a multi-planetary species. Their orders are to get to Mars. Employees that are bikeshedding, sowing internal discord, engaging in mutiny, are not working toward the goal and in fact actively hindering it. That's all the reason needed to prune them from the otherwise focused and ambitious team.

Musk himself isn't "bikeshedding" and "sowing internal discord" with his behavior? I've worked at companies before, and if you've ever worked at a company you'd know garbage flows down from the top. His behavior as an executive affects everyone and the company's goals.

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

#609

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

unboxingelf wrote: post #304
chasd00 wrote: post #125

Twitter is the worst thing to happen to Musk. The social media addiction knows no class/age/wealth/religious/creed boundary. It’s like social cancer that slowly destroys your relationship to society. Musk has done great things but these days I think he’s at his lowest point. /I’ve said this about three times now in threads like these.

Well put. His accomplishments are long and impressive but it seems social media has distracted, if not corrupted his line of sight.

> His accomplishments are long and impressive

What are Elon Musks accomplishments? His ability to get financing? Hiring the right people to push the success of SpaceX and Tesla? His ability to inflate the stock price of his company (above that of a historic bull market).

This isn't a cynical comment, I'm honestly trying to understand his actual accomplishments other then the ancillary praise one gets in America just for getting rich(er).

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

#610

Post by CodeMage »

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…

> This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading this is "So what?"

Yes, it's predictable. I don't believe people who wrote the letter haven't thought of this potential consequence and haven't felt any trepidation whatsoever.

So what if it's "predictable"? So what if it's legal? The point is not whether it's currently legal and whether it's predictable. The point is whether it's right.

How does stating that "it's predictable" address the very real and ugly problems in this whole situation?

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