SpaceX illegally fired workers who criticized Elon Musk, federal labor watchdog says

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 508 points – SpaceX illegally fired workers who criticized Elon Musk, federal labor watchdog says
cbsnews.com

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."

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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.

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.

I think Bill Gates might have inoculated the public against such PR.

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?

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.

The philanthropy has nothing to do with PR. It’s tax evasion.

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.

That’s as much just ego, honestly.

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

Ego is to Charmander as Legacy is to Charizard. Legacy is the superpowered version of ego.

I don't think he'll ever give away as much money as gates. He's going to spend it all on Mars for good or bad.

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.

This is like the least surprising thing I have read about Elon

Can we send him to Mars already?

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.

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

This should be interesting.

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"

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.