SpaceX fired employees due to a letter criticizing Elon Musk

(Reuters) – Private Rocket Company SpaceX It fired at least five employees after discovering it had written and distributed a letter criticizing the founder Elon Musk And urging executives to make the company’s culture more inclusive, said two people familiar with the matter.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that SpaceX had laid off employees related to the letter, citing three employees who were aware of the situation. It does not describe the number of employees laid off.

SpaceX president Quinn Shotwell sent an email to The New York Times stating that the company had “investigated and laid off several employees” in connection with the letter.

The newspaper quoted Shotwell as saying in an email that other employees had been fired for “causing inconvenience, intimidation and harassment and / or forcing the letter to sign something that did not reflect their views”.

Reuters could not confirm that statement independently.

The SpaceX letter, titled “An Open Letter to SpaceX Executives” by Reuters, described Musk as “distracting and embarrassing” to the company he founded.

The list of three demands includes “SpaceX must stay away from Elon’s personal brand quickly and explicitly”, “All leaders must be equally responsible for making SpaceX a better place to work for everyone” and “Everyone must be equally defined and responsive. Unacceptable patterns of behavior.”

Musk, who is also the CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc., has been in the headlines in recent months, and has been featured in nightly stand-up comedies in recent months for trying to capture Twitter, criticizing Democrats and making sexual allegations. Musk denied the allegations in a Twitter message.

The SpaceX open letter, first announced by The Verge, was drafted by SpaceX staff in recent weeks and shared as a link in the internal chat of the “Morale Boosters” group that brings together thousands of employees, one person said. The thing is, it asks to be anonymous.

Musk, the company’s chief engineer, is considered a key figure in SpaceX’s numerous high – level achievements, pioneering the reuse of orbital booster rockets, and bringing back the usual human spaceflight from American soil after a gap of nine years.

Shotwell, who runs most of the company’s day-to-day business, said it enforces SpaceX’s “Zero Tolerance” rules against harassment of its employees.

SpaceX, founded by Musk in 2002, played a key role in the U.S. space program, becoming the only company capable of sending NASA astronauts from American soil into space, and plans to send humans to the moon for the space agency in the United States. The next decade.

SpaceX is one of only two companies on which the Pentagon relies to launch most of the U.S. military and spy satellites into space.