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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

#781

Post by bhaak »

GameOfFrowns wrote: post #578
bhaak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what you get if your priorities clash. One side wants to build cool shit and the other side wants to shit post on Twitter.

>One side wants to build cool shit and the other side wants to shit post on Twitter. Do we know in which department the sacked employees worked? For all we know, they could have been employed in marketing or HR, not exactly the area that "builds cool shit" but often those that are active on social media and bent on bringing SJW politics into the working place.

Have you read what's supposed to be in the letter? Sounds like you're victim blaming to me.

I didn't see any SJW politics in that letter but concern that Elon's behavior would reflect badly on the company itself. Which is certainly true but if you have a megalomaniac boss I guess you also need to expect to be fired for telling the truth.

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

#782

Post by drak0n1c »

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.

The goal of the employees was to silence his free speech. Disrupting those censorious efforts by firing them is his dealing with Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. He realized that to preserve a tolerant workplace, intolerance of their rising tide of intolerance was necessary.

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

#783

Post by Casteil »

koheripbal wrote: post #25
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…

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 are toxic to company culture.

Does that include Musk himself, with the way he's been acting on Twitter lately?

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

#784

Post by thereddaikon »

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…

It's a pretty simple universal rule that you don't try to make your boss look bad. And doing so is a great way to end your employment.

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this. Whether what they said is right or wrong it was still damaging to the owner of the company and the company's reputation as well.

Its like the Tesla guy who was fired a few months back. Yeah it was his own car. Yeah it was on his own time. But he, a tesla employee was making the company look bad by uploading videos of the car failing to self drive to Youtube.

You don't get to not be a representative of your company just because you are off the clock. If people know that you work for X company then anything you say or do may be seen through the lens of "An X company employee"

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

#785

Post by bobobob420 »

"The letter called the billionaire’s public behavior and tweeting “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” and asked the company to rein him in"

Lmao thats pretty funny tbh. Employees should be allowed to say what they want but the firing was to be expected and maybe some of the employees learned unfortunately they do not have the power they thought they had.

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

#786

Post by dqpb »

Ah, the ever present amusement of action and consequence.

If you criticize your employer, expect to get fired. Just got fired? What do you care, you don’t like your employer anyway. Just fired everyone smart enough to criticize you? Enjoy your dwindling years with the team of incompetent cronies.

This is a perfect snapshot of the human condition.

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

#787

Post by krapp »

drak0n1c wrote: post #782
phailhaus wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The goal of the employees was to silence his free speech. Disrupting those censorious efforts by firing them is his dealing with Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. He realized that to preserve a tolerant workplace, intolerance of their rising tide of intolerance was necessary.

>Disrupting those censorious efforts by firing them is Popper’s Paradox in action.

No, it isn't. Popper's paradox only applies to the speech of parties which use force, rather than speech, to suppress the free speech of others. It was written in the context of Nazi Germany, and warning about the consequences of what is now called "free speech absolutism," when that freedom is co-opted by authoritarians who don't respect it (in other words, people like Elon Musk.)

Trying to suppress speech with more speech is simply how free speech is supposed to work.

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

#788

Post by AlexandrB »

jfdbcv wrote: post #559
SylvieLorxu wrote: post #215

Was this the "free speech" dude? Same dude as this? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/03/elon-musk...

These aren't inconsistent. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences, if said consequences do not restrict future freedom of speech.

For this to be consistent you have to define access to a Twitter account as more important to ones future freedom of speech than being able to put a roof over your head.

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

#789

Post by toomanyrichies »

thereddaikon wrote: post #784
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…

It's a pretty simple universal rule that you don't try to make your boss look bad. And doing so is a great way to end your employment. I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this. Whether what they said is right or wrong it was still damaging to the owner of the company and the company's reputation as well. Its like the Tesla guy who was fired a few months back. Yeah it was his own car. Yeah it was on his own time.…

> You don't get to not be a representative of your company just because you are off the clock. If people know that you work for X company then anything you say or do may be seen through the lens of "An X company employee"

But that’s exactly the point that the letter’s authors are making about Musk himself, and his tweets. Either the same rule applies equally to both Musk and his employees, or there’s an unfair double standard which should be remedied.

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

#790

Post by mullingitover »

riazrizvi wrote: post #264
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.

Worst thing? His influencing is central to his success. Unfortunately for civil discourse, it’s more effective to create controversial messaging that resonates with your followers, than sanitized messaging that is generally inoffensive. Controversial messaging makes your supporters increasingly loyal and attentive, as the noise from vocal ‘haters’ just keeps feeding your base. It’s perverse, it’s toxic, it’s exhausti…

> Worst thing? His influencing is central to his success.

Musk has been more unhinged in his online activities than ever in the past six months or so, coinciding with a 45% slide in TSLA share price. Hypothesizing that his social media addiction is central to his 'success' would be pretty easy to test by simply comparing TSLA's performance to another auto manufacturer, e.g. Ford or GM. Doing that, TSLA is not showing any advantage - all three have suffered about the same amount of share price decrease.

So just looking at the numbers, it's clear Musk could just focus entirely on productive work, skip the 'influencing' and wanton reputational damage to the businesses he manages, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. TSLA and the others would arguably be in the same place if the average person had no idea who Elon Musk was.

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