SpaceX Employees Criticize Elon Musk

An open letter to SpaceX criticizing CEO Elon Musk‘s recent behavior has triggered an internal chat system conversation among the company’s employees. Employees are urged to sign on to the letter’s ideas, either publicly or anonymously, with a signed version of the letter being given to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.

The letter, details how Musk’s conduct and recent allegations of sexual harassment against him are harming SpaceX’s brand. The letter was written by employees “across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles have collaborated on,” according to the paper. It is unknown who wrote the letter; staff who submitted it in the internal chat system have not replied to demands for comment.

“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter states. “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 is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.”

Musk has been busy recently, and his presence on Twitter can be particularly obnoxious. In April, he posted a photo of Bill Gates and an emoji of a pregnant man with the remark “in case u need to lose a boner fast.” He also replied to a tweet on Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin last year, saying, “Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol.” Musk is also aiming to acquire Twitter.

The letter, which was shared on Wednesday on an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel with over 2,600 employees, claims that the firm is failing to live up to its oft-stated “No Asshole” policy and its zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy. The document then suggests three different “action items” to address the situation: SpaceX should “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” the company should “hold all leadership equally accountable” for bad behavior, and SpaceX should “clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s ‘no-asshole’ and ‘zero tolerance’ policies and consistently enforce them.”

Although the amount of signatures was not immediately accessible, employees were asked to sign the letter by completing a survey or scanning a QR code. According to images of the chat given by two insiders who requested to remain anonymous, the message elicited over a hundred replies in the Teams channel, with many employees agreeing with the spirit of the communication. Some commenters were similarly embarrassed by Musk’s behavior. Others stated a wish for the organization to address executive leadership behavior and sexual harassment charges more effectively.

The letter comes nearly a month after an insider reported that SpaceX paid a $250,000 settlement to a former company flight attendant after she claimed Musk exposed himself to her and proposed to her during a massage, the allegation also included Musk wanting to purchase her a horse. Musk refuted the claims, saying that “there’s a lot more to this story.”

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“If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light,” he told the outlet. On Twitter, Musk joked about the story in a tweet reply: “Hi Chad, long time no see! Fine, if you touch my wiener, you can have a horse.”

After the report broke, Shotwell addressed an email to all SpaceX employees backing Musk. “Personally, I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations,” Shotwell wrote. “Anyone who knows Elon like I do, knows he would never conduct or condone this alleged inappropriate behavior.”

This isn’t the first time the issue of sexual harassment at SpaceX has come up. In December, a former SpaceX employee detailed her experience with what she characterized as widespread sexual harassment at the firm in an essay on the platform Lioness. She also chastised SpaceX’s human resources response to her complaints. Four former SpaceX employees,  claimed that the company’s HR staff handled harassment allegations poorly as well. Prior to the publication of the story, Shotwell emailed the corporation to reiterate the “No Asshole” policy.

“We also know we can always do better,” Shotwell wrote in December. “That is why HR has been soliciting feedback from groups across the company to ensure the process is effective. HR will also conduct an internal audit, followed by a third-party audit.”