I am amazed by so many who are defending Musk for his actions. I hope they would consider working for him in one of his companies & enjoy a life of subordinateship. Afterall Musk needs such workers - smart, hard working & yet someone who doesnt question him. I think dictator is the nearest term for it in the dictionary?
SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
631–640 of 1001 posts
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#632To 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…
The SpaceX President claims that the fired employees repeatedly spammed a large number of employees during paid time[1].
> "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."
1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/06/spacex-fired-emp...
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#633To 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…
> Unless they had received direct orders not to criticize Musk at all, internally or externally, they are not guilty of refusing to obey orders
Wouldn't it be ironic if a man who is "fighting to preserve free speech" fired employees for their speech he disagrees with? Oh, wait...
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#634Twitter 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.
He’s the same old Elon, the pedo guy tweet and taking Tesla private at $420 are just as embarrassing if not more so , he’s just on the other side of the culture war divide now (I.e the Republican side) so he’s now considered shameful in many parts.
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#635Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole point of the letter seems to have been “Musk’s behavior is detrimental to the company.” This implies that they care about the company and want it to succeed, and that their loyalty lies with it, not with Musk. As well it should. Tesla, SpaceX, etc are (or should be) companies, not cults. Here's an experiment. At your place of work, circulate a document criticizing leadership and how they're all wrong. Mak…
> The rest of us who live in the real world understand that hierarchy doesn't exist arbitrarily and we're not entitled to have someone pay us while we're spitting in their face. And someone isn't entitled to spit in your face just because they pay you. Respect for people should go both ways, and the view that just because someone is rich, above you in the ladder, you should just shut up and take it, isn't a good one…
> Workers have very little power to fight back
Workers (especially the average HN reader) have incredible power to fight back… find a new job and switch companies. Lots a companies are hiring even with the macro economic issues.
From an employee perspective it’s insane to me that one would put so much energy into fighting their leadership rather than just leaving the company for a better one.
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#636I am personally thrilled to see a company stand up to cancel culture and political employee activism. The ridiculous non-work related distractions from employee on various political crusades we've been seeing at many companies like Google are one of the things ruining Silicon Valley. It's nice to see Elon not allowing it at his companies, and Coinbase in being another standout against this silliness.
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#637Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole point of the letter seems to have been “Musk’s behavior is detrimental to the company.” This implies that they care about the company and want it to succeed, and that their loyalty lies with it, not with Musk. As well it should. Tesla, SpaceX, etc are (or should be) companies, not cults. Here's an experiment. At your place of work, circulate a document criticizing leadership and how they're all wrong. Mak…
> At your place of work, circulate a document criticizing leadership and how they're all wrong. Make sure to publicize this loudly to people outside the organization. See what happens. Ha! We do that all time at the university and nobody cares. At all. Nothing happens. Ever. It is somewhat infuriating, to be honest! Are you saying that academia is "not the real world" ?
> Are you saying that academia is "not the real world" ?
Universities are a unique creature where ideas and debate are the whole point, “more so than getting things done.” That’s also part of the “real world” in some sense, but it isn’t the world nearly all of us reside in. I would recommend any organization that wants to be successful outside of that unique context to not emulate the model of universities. That includes non profits and NGOs. Hierarchy exists almost universally in human organizations. That’s not an accident—it’s necessary for groups of humans working together to be effective.
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#638Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole point of the letter seems to have been “Musk’s behavior is detrimental to the company.” This implies that they care about the company and want it to succeed, and that their loyalty lies with it, not with Musk. As well it should. Tesla, SpaceX, etc are (or should be) companies, not cults. Here's an experiment. At your place of work, circulate a document criticizing leadership and how they're all wrong. Mak…
Would you apply the same logic to your leaders drowning the company stock and killing the public image ? What should the appropriate response be ?
Leave the company?
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#639Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Hiring the right people to push the success of SpaceX and Tesla?
Probably this. Its not easy to do.
I think there is also something to be said about the singularity of vision Musk brought to these companies. Its easy to dismiss (and I haven't been a fan of him much since the whole Thailand incident) but its one of those annoying aspects that eludes the desire of developers' (i.e. the average reader of this site) desire to quantify everything.
It makes me think of the story of Steve Jobs after his return to Apple, where he called a meeting of team leads, made a quadrant on a white board with the edges labeled "desktop" and "portable" on the vertical, "consumer" and "professional" on the horizontal, and demanded the company only produce 1 product to fill each of the four squares, eliminating the rest.
Re: SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk
#640I can't imagine trashing my CEO and expecting to keep my job. Maybe that's a Gen-X thing?
I think its more of a later millennial and Gen-Z thing. Gen-X was more--call out "the man" and then taking being fired as a badge of pride Gen-Z wants to call people out without repercussions.
Gen-X is middle management at these companies. That generation has never been a martyr for ANY cause - isn't Gen-X's whole "thing" that they're all nihilists and nothing matters etc etc?
People should be called out. Musk is always talking about upending established orders and questioning the status quo - guess he's more interested in loyalists.