SpaceX fired at least five employees on Thursday who wrote and disseminated an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk’s behavior and tweeting as a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment,” according to several reports.
The letter called on SpaceX leadership to “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior” and “define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior,” the New York Times reported.
The employees laid out several demands, including that the company “must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand” and “hold all leadership equally accountable to making SpaceX a great place to work for everyone,” Reuters reported.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and the richest man on Earth, has increasingly been in the national spotlight in recent months since he first revealed his plans to acquire Twitter.
After Insider reported in May on a flight attendant’s allegations that Musk had propositioned her for a sexual massage during a flight to London in 2016 and that he had exposed himself to her and offered her a horse, Musk shot back that the accusations were “utterly untrue.” He went on to jokingly write in a tweet to a friend, “Fine, if you touch my wiener, you can have a horse.”
The private rocket company investigated and terminated a number of employees involved with the letter one day after it first began circulating, the New York Times reported.
“The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell wrote in an email obtained by the Times. “We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”
Shotwell reportedly added, “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.”
“Please stay focused on the SpaceX mission, and use your time to do your best work,” she concluded. “This is how we will get to Mars.”