SpaceX said to fire employees involved in letter rebuking Elon Musk • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by soheil » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

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.

He never claimed SpaceX is a town square. You're conflating this with his description of Twitter as a de-facto town square where speech shouldn't be policed as harshly and silently as it is now.

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

#412

Post by ohgodplsno » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #101

ohgodplsno wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Cool cool cool, tech bros straight up rejecting reports of sexual assaults and publicly calling it a lie Are you calling Gwynne Shotwell a tech bro? That’s her stance.

Sure. Someone who directly depends on Musk not going to jail for their employment to not disappear isn't exactly the best judge of character. She can even be a tech sis if you want, or a 10xer, pick your favorite.

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

#413

Post by dont__panic » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #151

user_named wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait six month, when the Tesla stock has crashed and he gets margin called. He's going to go nuts and have an epic fall from grace.

If I might be so bold, I don’t think anyone around here really appreciates Musk’s antics very much. However Tesla and SpaceX are fundamentally sound, if overvalued, businesses. Since the start of Tesla he has had loud and obnoxious detractors who have had any number of reasons Tesla is about to implode. Instead they keep churning out solid EVs and SpaceX keeps putting stuff in space. As much as I dislike him, I would…

It's an interesting strategy, really -- build a sorta-neat stable business, and affiliate it with a buffoon who constantly overpromises to his cult following to inflate the stock price to outrageous values.

Then, your "sorta-neat stable business" has MASSIVE amounts of value from stock grants, capital it can use to hire more, pay more, finance debt for large purchases, etc. Kind of a superpower for an otherwise unremarkable company.

Of course, there's other externalities from the buffoon and his cultists. They can drive away good workers, or pivot the company in unpleasant directions, or just leave some day, tank the company stock, and then the company loses the superpower and all of the things that come with it. But if your main mission is growth, well, it makes a lot of sense...

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

#414

Post by watwut » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #360

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…

My wife, ever the empathetic, reminds me constantly that Elon is not neurotypical. He has aspergers, and that can explain some of his bluntness, some of his work-life demands, etc. I don't want to generalize or stereotype ASD in general, but it does produce tangible differences in how people relate to the world.

Aspergers does not explains his behavior. It does not explain grandiosity, oversensitivity, lying, egoism and so on. Also, Musk is pretty good at negotiating, manipulating and can be very charming, people with asperger are usually opposite.

So, that diagnosis is some minor influence somewhere, but does not explains the rest.

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

#415

Post by onion2k » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

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.

Being fired was a consequence of their free speech.

Musk has only ever said he believes people should have absolute freedom of speech; he hasn't said people shouldn't face consequences for what they say.

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

#416

Post by pc86 » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

huhwat wrote: post #237

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…

Turns out speech about working conditions is protected. You can't be fired for sharing your wages, for instance. I would not be shocked to hear that this results in a lawsuit over protected concerted activity.

Speech about working conditions is indeed protected. Nothing in the letter is about working conditions.

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

#417

Post by kick_in_thedoor » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#418

Post by transcoderx » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

cr__ wrote: post #40

koheripbal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is “the boss is acting like a huge turd” something you’re allowed to discuss at your workplace?

It is allowed, but your boss is also allowed to fire you. Ianal

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

#419

Post by huhwat » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #396

huhwat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out speech about working conditions is protected. You can't be fired for sharing your wages, for instance. I would not be shocked to hear that this results in a lawsuit over protected concerted activity.

It is quite a stretch to say that the letter was about working conditions. Working conditions is things like working hours, your physical environment, your responsibilities [1]. The SpaceX letter was basically "Musk is uncouth, and we don't like that". A fair criticism, but nothing about working conditions. The text of the letter can be found at [2], if anyone wants to judge for themselves. [1] https://definitions.us…

If retention and recruitment are impacted, then working hours become longer. If company values are enforced internally but publicly the CEO is acting against those values, then it becomes harder to understand what someone might be disciplined for. The connections are, imo, there.

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

#420

Post by fullshark » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

nerbert wrote: post #260

jmyeet wrote: post #153

I'm really starting to wonder if 2022 won't be looked back as the year that Elon finally jumped the shark. A lot of people (myself included) really respect SpaceX and I think that's the last pillar on which Elon's reputation stands. Tesla honestly isn't that interesting and there's a real chance it gets eaten alive as other car manufacturers have caught up. The Cybertruck is still vaporware whereas the F150 Lightning…

I hear that cofounder thing about Tesla every now and then. Doesn't matter when the company was founded, if someone joined before the company finds its market fit, that person is legitimate to be called cofounder imo.

A lawsuit was filed over it wow:

https://www.cnet.com/culture/tesla-motors-founders-now-there...

"On Monday, a Tesla representative said that Eberhard and other principals in the dispute have come to an agreement. The company did not reveal any details of the resolution, except to say that there are now five, rather than two, agreed-upon "founders" of Tesla.

In addition to Eberhard, other founders include current CEO and chief product architect Elon Musk, current chief technology JB Straubel, Marc Tarpenning, and Ian Wright."