In an email, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president, said the letter had made other employees “feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied.”
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has fired several employees who were involved in an open letter that blasted the colourful billionaire for his behavior.
In an email, SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell wrote that a “small group” of employees sought their colleagues’ signatures in a show of support for the letter and participation in a survey. “Some workers felt “uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” Shotwell’s message continued. “We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism,” she added.
After conducting an investigation, the company “terminated a number of employees involved,” Shotwell said, without specifying how many. The workers’ letter had slammed Elon Musk’s behavior in public, as well as recent accusations of sexual harassment against him, as “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.”
Some reports emerged that Musk had paid $250,000 to a flight attendant to quash a potential sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He has pushed back against the allegations, calling them “utterly untrue.” Musk, who also heads electric car maker Tesla, is in the midst of a roller-coaster $44 billion bid to buy Twitter.
Yesterday, a shareholder of Tesla Inc sued Musk and its board, accusing them of neglecting to tackle complaints about workplace discrimination and harassment, and engendering a “toxic workplace culture.” The latest lawsuit against Tesla stated, “Tesla has created a toxic workplace culture grounded in racist and sexist abuse and discrimination against its own employees”.
Investor Soloman Chau said, “This toxic work environment has gestated internally for years, and only recently has the truth about Tesla’s culture emerged”. Tesla has said it does not tolerate discrimination and has taken steps to tackle workers’ complaints.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants — Musk, 11 Tesla board members, and the company of having breached their fiduciary duty by failing to address and remedy the red flags concerning internal reports of discrimination and harassment. This caused Tesla to lose high-quality employees and incur costs for defending cases and settling fines for violations, the lawsuit said.
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