Labor officials allege SpaceX illegally dismissed workers who publicly condemned Elon Musk's tweets as an "embarrassment."

Federal labor regulators allege that SpaceX illegally fired employees who publicly criticized Elon Musk, the exploration company’s founder and CEO.

According to allegations laid out in a complaint filed Wednesday by a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board, SpaceX wrongfully terminated eight employees and interrogated dozens more in 2022 after the workers wrote and shared an open letter calling for the company’s leadership to condemn Musk’s “disparaging” and “sexually charged” comments on social media.

The letter criticized SpaceX management for what the authors called the company’s failure to tackle a culture of “sexism, harassment and discrimination” within its workplace, the NLRB said in the complaint. Separately, they asked SpaceX to “condemn” Musk’s “harmful Twitter behavior.”

  • Rooskie91@discuss.online
    52·
    10 months ago

    Amazing to watch this man undo decades of pr firms and countless dollars spent by rich people to make themselves look good. Carnegie must be rolling in his grave. What a spectacle.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      22·
      10 months ago

      We’re still in the middle of the second act. The third act starts in about 10 to 15 years when the unbridled philanthropy happens attempting to whitewash the actions of the second act in search of redemption.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          20·
          10 months ago

          Us old folks have lived through a lifetime with Bill Gates. The PR isn’t for us. Its for the people born after he did all his bad stuff that never experienced it firsthand. They’ll only see the philanthropy.

          Rockefeller, Carnegie, and others did this successfully. When the Today Show comes on the air and the announcer says “Live from Rockefeller center…!” does anyone today think of the carnage John D left in his wake?

          • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            5·
            10 months ago

            True. I guess I’m hoping his recent fuck up with keeping the COVID vaccine from being more widely distributed might galvanize the youths. That and the Epstein flight logs.

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
              6·
              10 months ago

              Tax avoidance is certainly one factor, but to dismiss old people’s desire for legacy would be dishonest. If it was just for tax reasons, the person’s name wouldn’t be requested to be included in the philanthropic venture.

              Example:

              It could have been called the “New York Cancer Center” but it wasn’t.

              • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                10 months ago

                That’s as much just ego, honestly.

                Like how Trump needs to put his name on literally every single thing that is his.

  • Dr. Dabbles@lemmy.worldEnglish
    151·
    10 months ago

    Space Karen did a thing? What a surprise.

    Everyone I knew at SpaceX that was worth a damn left years ago, so, maybe the rest of them should take the hint and leave too.

    • vexikron@lemmy.zip
      3·
      10 months ago

      Don’t send him to Mars.

      Send him to go retrieve that goddamned Tesla he launched into space.

      I’m sure he can download the latest version of Full Self Driving via Starlink and be juuuuust fine.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        10 months ago

        Since he’s such an amazing spaceship engineer, we should totally make him fly the rocket.

        This should be interesting.

      • Jorgelino@lemmy.ml
        2·
        10 months ago

        This is it, after millions of years thinking we were alone in the universe… Alas, first contact:

        “People of earth, we would like to inform you that your vehicle is illegally parked in the orbit of the alpha centauri system, sector b-42. Failure to promptly remove this vehicle until stardate -298953.5519125684 may result in said vehicle being hurled at the sun at the planet’s expense”

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    3·
    10 months ago

    There’s often clauses in contracts saying you can’t publicly disparage the company. I’ve definitely had that in mine before.

    No clue if that’s actually legal or not though.

    If this was entirely private, within the company, that wouldn’t usually be a problem, but publicly people get fired for making their company look bad all the time. Again, maybe not legal. (edit: Also Musk would definitely be a target for this if he wasn’t the CEO)

    Edit: I also watched a person criticize the CEO and get into an argument with him on a company call when the CEO asked for feedback, and he was fired the next day.