TECH NEWS – Several SpaceX employees are being fired over an open letter criticising CEO Elon Musk and calling for executives to step up.

Ever since Elon Musk raised the idea of buying Twitter and started the process, many people, including fans of Twitter and Tesla, have criticised the business move. SpaceX employees have also been among those who have voiced their displeasure with Musk’s latest venture, with some drafting letters criticising the SpaceX CEO.

The letter from SpaceX employees calling for more backlash against CEO Elon Musk and his regularly divisive tweets was first reported by The Verge, and it didn’t take long for others outside the company to learn of the letter’s contents. The letter was primarily about the negative attention SpaceX is receiving because of Musk’s public behaviour, and it points to his Twitter account as the source of much of the employee frustration.

Although the open letter cites SpaceX’s policies in justifying its call for drastic action, PC Gamer reported that the company had fired employees who criticised Elon Musk.

According to Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX CEO, the SpaceX employee letter criticising Elon Musk has outraged many other employees who had felt “uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry” as a result. Shotwell and SpaceX aggregated employee feedback from a wide range of workers as they tried to decide what steps to take to conclude that they would fire some workers, which they have not yet confirmed, but it appears to be five or more.

In addition to explaining the pressures that some SpaceX employees have felt as a result of the open letter about Elon Musk, Shotwell also mentioned the multiple projects that are consuming most employees’ time and stressed the need to use internal resources to help employees if they have concerns about the company.

Elon Musk’s potentially problematic tweets, which led to an open letter to SpaceX employees, include a feud with the game publisher Hard Drive, during which both sides mocked each other on Twitter.

Since the Twitter takeover deal was made public, Musk has also hinted that he will back out due to the excessive bot problem (i.e. the high number of fake profiles), but the deal’s closing is still undecided. Musk’s other company, Tesla, has also sparked controversy recently, as Tesla owners have reported more accidents than the billionaire had previously expected in producing electric vehicles.

Gwynne Shotwell said that the letter resulted from “overreaching activism,” so employees who share the mentality expressed in the letter may be discouraged from similarly reporting their problems. Since several employees were involved in the drafting of the SpaceX open letter, others simply signed the document, and it is possible that some signatures did not lead to firing. It is not yet clear how many of the employees quoted in SpaceX’s letter have been terminated, but one of their concerns is that Elon Musk is too divisive in his acquisition of Twitter, and this may be something he took into account when he recently floated not buying the social platform after all.

Source: PC Gamer