Former SpaceX employees Paige Holland-Thielen, former lead avionics operations and automation engineer, left, and Tom Moline, a former senior avionics operations and integration engineer, allege they were wrongfully fired for organizing an open letter criticizing Elon Musk's behavior.
CNN —
Eight former SpaceX employees filed labor-law complaints, alleging that Elon Musk’s space company unlawfully fired workers after they wrote company management a letter begging them to publicly condemn Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.
The former workers allege that SpaceX terminated their employment for participating in “concerted protected activities.” Those protected activities included putting together an open letter in June that alleged SpaceX’s “current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values.” According to a copy of the letter attached to one of the complaints, the former employees claim Musk’s public comments were a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.”
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment, nor has it responded to routine requests from reporters in years.
The company, which Musk founded in 2002, is one of the most influential and powerful commercial space companies in the world. It holds billions of dollars worth of contracts with the US military and NASA, including deals to deliver astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station as well as a contract to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface as part of the space...
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