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According to Kayla Blado, a National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) spokesman, a regional official filed a complaint on Wednesday, January 3, stating Elon Musk and SpaceX had violated the workers' federal labor law rights and unethically fired eight people for openly criticizing Musk, the CEO and founder of SpaceX.
This downsizing stemmed from the fact that in June 2022, SpaceX employees wrote an open letter to the company’s officials complaining about some of Musk’s controversial and s*xually explicit tweets from 2020.
Moreover, in the same letter, the workers also urged the firm's leadership to condemn Musk's "disparaging" and "s*xually charged" remarks on social media.
Nevertheless, netizens didn’t seem to agree with the content of the letter. Once the news was made public on X (formerly known as Twitter) by @BBCWorld, X users took to the comment section of the post to criticize the writers of the letters and support Musk in his decision to fire the employees.
8 staff members of SpaceX reportedly fired for openly criticizing Elon Musk
A US labor agency accused the rocket and satellite manufacturer SpaceX on Wednesday, January 3, of forcibly terminating eight workers for distributing a letter referring to Elon Musk as a "distraction and embarrassment".
An NLRB regional director filed the complaint alleging that the owner of X and SpaceX had violated the labor law by using other workers as targets of interrogations regarding the open letter, surveillance, and retaliation.
The staff members had further raised concerns in the letter about Musk's actions on X, referring to his alleged "inappropriate, disparaging, s*xually charged comments”. Moreover, the letter also argued that Musk’s tweets were incompatible with the company's standards regarding diversity and misconduct in the workplace.
In the 2022 letter against the founder and CEO of SpaceX, the employees further added:
"Elon's behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us”.
Furthermore, the NLRB’s January 2 statement reads that apparently SpaceX "told other employees that the eight were discharged for participating in the open letter, interrogated other employees about the open letter (and instructed employees not to discuss the investigatory interviews)".
The complaint against Elon Musk further stated that the company "created an impression of surveillance (including reading and showing screenshots of communications between employees), disparaged participation in the open letter, and restricted employees from distributing the open letter”.
However, once the news went viral on X, internet users flooded the comment section of the post, which was uploaded by The BBC World, to agree with Musk and not the letter or the employees.
The NLRB complaint against the Managing Director of Twitter additionally stated that SpaceX management threatened to impose more terminations in case collective action was taken by other workers.
Moreover, the company reportedly restricted the letter's dissemination and used the open letter as justification for the terminations.
The complaint further stated that before being fired, those who had participated in the open letter had been questioned. The BBC has reported that a trial will be conducted regarding the same. The trial is set to start on March 5.
On the other hand, the BBC has requested a statement from the rocket and satellite company, but no one has answered back.
