Since Elon Musk teased the idea of buying Twitter and began the process of going through with it, many people, including Twitter and Tesla enthusiasts, have been critical of the business move. Employees of SpaceX have been among those voicing such displeasure with Musk's recent ventures as some drafted a letter criticizing the SpaceX CEO.
The SpaceX employee letter asking for more repercussions for CEO Elon Musk and his regularly divisive tweets was first reported on by The Verge, and it didn't take long for others outside the company to learn of its contents. The letter primarily discussed the negative attention that SpaceX is receiving as the result of Musk's public behavior, and it specifies his Twitter account as a source of much of the employee frustration. Although the open letter cites SpaceX policy in its rationale for requesting drastic action, PC Gamer has reported that the company has fired the employees who criticized Elon Musk.
According to SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell, the SpaceX employee letter criticizing Elon Musk upset many other workers who felt "uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry" because of it. Shotwell and SpaceX aggregated employee feedback from a diverse range of workers in trying to decide what action to take to come to the conclusion to fire a number of employees that has yet to be confirmed but seems to be five or more individuals. Beyond explaining the pressure some SpaceX employees felt as a result of this open letter about Elon Musk, Shotwell also mentioned multiple projects that are consuming the time of most workers and emphasized internal resources employees should use if they have concerns about the company.
Among Elon Musk's potentially problematic tweets that led to the SpaceX employee open letter is a feud that he had with gaming publication Hard Drive which saw both parties mocking each other on Twitter. Since the Twitter acquisition deal was teased publicly, Musk has also hinted at pulling out of it due to an excessive bot problem, but the conclusion of the deal has yet to be decided. Musk's other company Tesla has also seen some controversy recently as there are more accidents reported by Tesla owners than the billionaire may have previously anticipated when manufacturing the electric vehicles.
Gwynne Shotwell has stated that the letter is the result of "overreaching activism," so employees that share the mentality expressed in the letter may feel discouraged from reporting their issues in a similar way. Because the SpaceX open letter involved multiple workers drafting it, others simply signed the document, and it's possible that some signatures didn't result in firing. It's currently unclear how many of the employees cited in the SpaceX letter have been terminated, but one of their concerns is Elon Musk spreading himself too thin by buying Twitter, and it may be something he has considered when teasing that he won't acquire Twitter after all.
Source: PC Gamer