Elon Musk’s SpaceX reportedly fires employees who wrote open letter

Last week, an open letter reportedly addressed to South African-born US-based billionaire Elon Musk was published by various international publications. In the letter, SpaceX employees called Musk out for his tweeting habits and accused him of embarrassing them.

Since then, several employees involved in writing the open letter have reportedly been shown the door at the spacecraft development company.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX fires open letter employees

“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” reads part of an open letter that was reportedly addressed to a very vocal Elon Musk by his employees at SpaceX.

According to various reports, the employees demanded that the 51-year-old be called to order when it comes to what he says on social media – Twitter in particular.

“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” it reads.

This evidently didn’t bode well with Musk who also founded Tesla.

According to IOL, the business mogul has fired several of the employees involved in writing the open letter.

ALSO READ: Elon Musk’s SpaceX employees call him out for his ‘embarrassing’ tweets

‘Too much critical work to complete‘

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement that the company investigated the open letter and has terminated employees involved.

According to Shotwell, there is no place in the company for “overreaching activism”.

“We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism,” Shotwell reportedly told Bloomberg in an email.

Also according to Shotwell, the letter left many other employees feeling “uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views.”