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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

#821

Post by etchalon »

mavhc wrote: post #813
uncomputation wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

If your ability to stay alive depending on you keeping your job you wouldn't go around signing public letters. Did he attempt to supress the letter? Freedom of speech != freedom from action

I don't understand the logic that people without power shouldn't speak up to those with it.

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

#823

Post by Etheryte »

uncomputation wrote: post #810
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…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

Freedom of speech does not mean being free of consequences. Much like you're free to offend, the other side is free to be offended and employment goes both ways. Firing someone because they fundamentally disagree on how the company should be run is not censorship, it's keeping only people who align with the direction you're headed.

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

#824

Post by mlindner »

uncomputation wrote: post #810
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…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

People keep misconstruing his opinion on free speech. His opinion on free speech isn't "freedom to say anything anywhere to anyone and have no repercussions". He specifically believes Twitter should be treated as a virtual town square, i.e. you can say what you like without fear from being removed from the town square, but it has zero bearing on what people say about you on that town square.

SpaceX is not a town square and never will be, nor is any private company. I doubt even Twitter employees will be able to say what they like on Twitter without fear of being fired from Twitter. It's only about removing you from the platform.

There's no hypocrisy, it lines up exactly with his past actions and his past words.

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

#825

Post by countvonbalzac »

Etheryte wrote: post #823
uncomputation wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

Freedom of speech does not mean being free of consequences. Much like you're free to offend, the other side is free to be offended and employment goes both ways. Firing someone because they fundamentally disagree on how the company should be run is not censorship, it's keeping only people who align with the direction you're headed.

Then Trump is free to incite an insurrection on Twitter, and Twitter is free to ban him. Which is the opposite of what Elon thinks.

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

#826

Post by mlindner »

justinph wrote: post #257
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…

Wasn't it an internal letter that was leaked? I mean sure, being leaked is a predictable consequence, but it may be a distinction with a difference if the criticizers didn't themselves leak it. Regardless, will be interesting to see how this plays out. If I were one of those employees, I'd be talking to a lawyer. If I was one of the employees still working at SpaceX, I'd be talking about a union. We recently unionize…

An internal letter sent to thousands of employees.

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

#827

Post by dylan604 »

uncomputation wrote: post #810
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…

It is pretty hypocritical though for Mr. Free Speech to fire people who have concerns rather than address those concerns in a civil dialogue. Musk likes to whinge about “censorship” amounting to banning a Twitter account but seems perfectly okay firing someone and removing their livelihood for speaking critically of him. Also retaliation is very much still illegal, not that it matters.

Should they all have made Twitter posts rather than signing a piece of paper, or would Musk just claim they were bots and not real?

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

#828

Post by CodeSgt »

CodeMage wrote: post #610
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…

It's absolutely right for a man who built a company to be able to fire whoever he wishes, especially for cause like in this case.

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

#829

Post by mlindner »

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.

"Free speech absolutist" doesn't mean "freedom from consequences outside the town square (either literal or virtual)". It just means you won't be forcibly removed from the town square. Just like you can go walk in your Nazi parades in the US, it doesn't mean you won't get fired from your job if people see you in that parade, but you can still keep doing your parades.
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