SpaceX employees denounce CEO Musk as 'distraction': letter [CLOSED DUE TO POLITICS]

[Morning Star]

Well.

Elon Musk's SpaceX fires at least five for letter criticizing him

Can't say I'm surprised.

This kind of attitude to criticism stifles innovation, and lets objectively bad choices through the pipeline (like the steering yoke on a car without drive-by-wire or an appropriate steering ratio).

 

[JBee]

Elon kept his politics to himself, and was popular with idealistic engineers from 2001-2021.

Now Elon's out of the closet as a Republican, and he's likely to only be popular with idealistic Republican engineers. As you know, educated people tend to skew non-Republican, and engineers are educated people.

I lead a team of 10 engineers, and there's one guy who vocally agrees with Republicans and 1-2 who may agree privately. My team's politics run the gamut from right-wing gun-guys to lefty-Christians and actual socialists - but none of that has to do with our product, so most of us leave it at home most of the time. Our team wouldn't function otherwise.

I have strong opinions about what is right for my nation, too, but my team wouldn't function without our exclusive focus on the product and the customer. When I'm on the clock, my political opinion is that we need to please the customer with a great product.

Cutting our talent-pool in half would slowly strangle our business and make it hard to please the customer, and we know it. Cutting the talent-pool will do the same with Elon's business eventually, but he doesn't seem to realize it.

Tesla's CEO should be disciplined and customer-focused. Anything else will slowly degrade the business.

Lol. Educated people would be neither.

Also "out of the closet as an Republican"? That sounds prejudiced already.

You obviously don't get that he is neither, rather that he is navigating the minefield of bipartisan politics?

Q: Will the employee letter cause more harm than good and should they be held responsible?

We've had a conversation like this before on this forum, where EM told Grimes he wanted to leave for Mars in the next 10 years. The question was what does Tesla and SpaceX even look like without EM. Will it work or go like many other corporations before it?

Conversely, who will even notice a few engineers or employees leave?

Besides they don't have to work for EM or any of his companies, but asking him to change how he manages his companies so that it fits them is ok? I say get your own company and run it any way you like yourself. He's not breaking the law, and if he didn't stand up for it, then they are calling out his whole position on free speech and the things he wishes to stand for.

 

[JBee]

Well.

Elon Musk's SpaceX fires at least five for letter criticizing him

Can't say I'm surprised.

This kind of attitude to criticism stifles innovation, and lets objectively bad choices through the pipeline (like the steering yoke on a car without drive-by-wire or an appropriate steering ratio).

Was that the innovation? To give into the mob?

What innovation did it stifle? A few ideas whos main intention was division?
Has anyone read the whole employee letter?

You do know it was from SpaceX employees that do rockets, not Tesla employees that do cars?
Last time I checked SpaceX don't do steering wheels, or yokes. ?

 

[rr6013]

Well.

Elon Musk's SpaceX fires at least five for letter criticizing him

Can't say I'm surprised.

This kind of attitude to criticism stifles innovation, and lets objectively bad choices through the pipeline (like the steering yoke on a car without drive-by-wire or an appropriate steering ratio).

There went “ flat hierarchy” which distinguished EM as an innovator and the company reputations that were founded upon egalitarian, open and non-judgemental responsibility to *do the right thing*.

 

[jerhenderson]

There is a lot of anti-worker sentiment in this thread and a lot of apologism for a man who routinely mistreats employees and others in his personal life. Elon is a liability that will have to be dealt with eventually in all of his companies. He’s unstable and polarizing and these attributes will destabilize the culture and morale of the companies he’s a part of, especially if he remains in a leadership role. On top of that he’s one of the top causes of apprehension and doubt for people who would otherwise be interested in his companies products or services.

Unless he learns to be a team player or ups his charisma game this is the future he’s creating for himself.

his companies 1 million job applications tell me that they want to work there. some people will always be whiners and never be satisfied.

 

[jerhenderson]

Amber Heard left the real version of a poop emoji in the their bed. . . I don't know who was the sheriff or the mayor, but they were both running things in Crazytown.

As far as Elon goes, he's becoming an issue. I was toying with the idea of getting a Y and giving it to my wife when the CT was available then using her car as the CT trade-in.

I hadn't mentioned the plan to her and she was very open to Teslas. But, last weekend she flat out said she doesn't want a Tesla. She said this out of the conversational blue, which tells me it's an issue. She flat out said I can get whatever I want, but she doesn't want anything to do with Musk's ventures because of him. This is a problem because she's not a car person, and for her to NOT like a car for a specific pin point reason is way off character. She thinks the CT is butt-ugly but was still only indifferent towards it.

Her chain of thought for buying a car is in this order:

- Can it fit all of the family's luggage, the family, and the dog
- Is it comfortable for her to sit in
- Is dark blue or grey available right now
- If it meets all of the above . . . buy the cheapest one.

Done.

She was just recently ready to add "EV" as a must, but guess what... That item now says "is it a Non-Tesla EV"

Elon needs to learn to STFU or atleast go on alternating 6 month breaks from social media.

maybe she's being petty.

 

[Dusty]

maybe she's being petty.

Nah.. I don't think so. Some people with a low social IQ might see it that way, but she actually possesses the personal strength to not reward someone with an ideology she doesn't agree with, instead of being apathetic. At some point, people should examine who earns their money. Far too often people will eat a shchidt sandwich that someone with means will hand them, and pretend it's fine because they lack the guts to say "no, I won't accept this".

I have to admit that Musk is getting pretty close to my own personal line with what he recently said. I have a a few personal topics that create a hard decision point where I don't reward assholes.

 

[YeahYeahYeah]

Popper's paradox. Tolerance of intolerance is intolerance.

You don't have to agree to be supportive of anti-racism or against bullying of LGBT+. You just have to accept that there are things outside your experience that you should be conservative of opining about.

-Crissa

My expectation is just do your job, work hard, be kind, be respectful to everyone that's the unwritten rule....right? I'm just passing through on my pilgrimage here like everyone else. No special conditions needed for anyone period. Whatever personnel viewpoints or opinions they have that differ from my own are irrelevant, we're at work to complete goals in the interest of whatever mission, or service that employer has put before us.

 

[kbolt]

What is it that he said recently that had everyone uptight?

I like working remote and have a family so I'd never work at Tesla. That's fine.

If a group of people completely ignored me and gave praise to someone who sold 1000x less electric cars than me, gave them more federal money, and invited them and not me to a meeting then I wouldn't vote for them either. But I don't subscribe to politics as a team sport: us good, them bad. People don't seem to care when their company lobbies for a certain cause or makes political donations to a candidate or part, but because it's EM it makes headlines.

People are people. Everyone voices their opinion about all sorts of topics that they aren't experts in. EM is somehow held to another standard that he can't talk about his thoughts on the economy, but it's okay for the worst stock predictors to talk about stocks on TV?

 

[Dusty]

A person can say what they want. But that doesn't mean everyone has to be OK with what was said. That's part of the deal if you broadcast your opinion.

You'd be better served by Googling recent tweets over the last 2 weeks because it goes straight to "politics" territory which gets a thread shut down.

 

[Eye of Elon]

2 little snowflakes are so upset by diversity of opinion that they can't concentrate on their job bussing tables at the employee cafeteria.

Also, please, if you post a link, mention it is from The Verge so i don't waste my time.

Although you are correct in your stock analysis, in fact, I would go further and blame Elon's Twitter shenanigans for the collapse of the entire stock market! Reeeeeee

 

[Luke42]

Lol. Educated people would be neither.

Also "out of the closet as an Republican"? That sounds prejudiced already.

You obviously don't get that he is neither, rather that he is navigating the minefield of bipartisan politics?

Musk publicly declared himself a Republican on twitter to distract from his sex scandal.

He told us in so many words, and then proceeded to behave like a Republican about his sex scandal.

This is not innocently navigating the minefield of partisan politics in the united states.

This is going all-in on partisan muck-throwing, and it's a risk to both TSLA-the-stock and Tesla-the-business.

For contrast, the CEO of my company does not discuss American Partisan Politics in public, and pretty much only talks about how great the company he leads is and how great our products are. I'm sure he has his opinions but, if you ask him to speak in public, he's going to try to sell our products. This is standard CEO behavior, and for good reason.

Conversely, who will even notice a few engineers or employees leave?

Besides they don't have to work for EM or any of his companies, but asking him to change how he manages his companies so that it fits them is ok? I say get your own company and run it any way you like yourself. He's not breaking the law, and if he didn't stand up for it, then they are calling out his whole position on free speech and the things he wishes to stand for.

You're thinking about this as an employee/customer. Companies like to simultaneously tell employees that they're talented and replaceable - which is just a mindgame.

From the employer's perspective, you have a list of work that needs to be done, with a dollar-value attached to each one.

Losing an engineer means you don't get work done on time anymore.

If you lose an engineer over a stupid political tweet by the CEO, that means means you have to backtrack, hire a new engineer, and train them in the specifics of the team/job all for an optional tweet.

Preventing this cause of schedule slip is free, assuming the CEO is moderately disciplined about how they present themselves in public.

 

[jhogan2424]

Amber Heard left the real version of a poop emoji in the their bed. . . I don't know who was the sheriff or the mayor, but they were both running things in Crazytown.

As far as Elon goes, he's becoming an issue. I was toying with the idea of getting a Y and giving it to my wife when the CT was available then using her car as the CT trade-in.

I hadn't mentioned the plan to her and she was very open to Teslas. But, last weekend she flat out said she doesn't want a Tesla. She said this out of the conversational blue, which tells me it's an issue. She flat out said I can get whatever I want, but she doesn't want anything to do with Musk's ventures because of him. This is a problem because she's not a car person, and for her to NOT like a car for a specific pin point reason is way off character. She thinks the CT is butt-ugly but was still only indifferent towards it.

Her chain of thought for buying a car is in this order:

- Can it fit all of the family's luggage, the family, and the dog
- Is it comfortable for her to sit in
- Is dark blue or grey available right now
- If it meets all of the above . . . buy the cheapest one.

Done.

She was just recently ready to add "EV" as a must, but guess what... That item now says "is it a Non-Tesla EV"

Elon needs to learn to STFU or atleast go on alternating 6 month breaks from social media.

Some people may not buy a Tesla because they don’t agree with Musk’s comments, but you can be sure just as many people will buy a Tesla because they DO agree with his comments.

 

[John K]

2 little snowflakes are so upset by diversity of opinion that they can't concentrate on their job bussing tables at the employee cafeteria.

Also, please, if you post a link, mention it is from The Verge so i don't waste my time.

Although you are correct in your stock analysis, in fact, I would go further and blame Elon's Twitter shenanigans for the collapse of the entire stock market! Reeeeeee

Good on you for being a Woke Snowflake.

 

[Morning Star]

My expectation is just do your job, work hard, be kind, be respectful to everyone that's the unwritten rule....right? … we're at work to complete goals in the interest of whatever mission, or service that employer has put before us.

if you’re trying to encourage people to do their job without ruffling any feathers, don’t use the scene from The Matrix that demonstrates how modern work environments are designed to break your spirit and encourage blind conformity and obedience. Because that inevitably leads to Neos ascending to a meta reality and unraveling the entire system.

(I personally encourage unraveling facade realities, however.)