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SpaceX Said to Fire Employees Involved in Letter Rebuking Elon Musk
In an email, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president, said the letter had made other employees “feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied.”

SpaceX, the private rocket company, on Thursday fired employees who helped write and distribute an open letter criticizing the behavior of chief executive Elon Musk, said three employees with knowledge of the situation.

Some SpaceX employees began circulating the letter, which denounced Mr. Musk’s activity on Twitter, on Wednesday. The letter called the billionaire’s public behavior and tweeting “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” and asked the company to rein him in. Mr. Musk is currently closing a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.

By Thursday afternoon, SpaceX had fired some of the letter’s organizers, according to the three employees and an email from Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer. In her email, which was obtained by The New York Times, she said the company had investigated and “terminated a number of employees involved” with the letter.

An open letter to the Executives of SpaceX,

In light of recent allegations against our CEO and his public disparagement of the situation, we would like to deliver feedback on how these events affect our company’s reputation, and through it, our mission. Employees across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles have collaborated on this letter. We feel it is imperative to maintain honest and open dialogue with each other to effectively reach our company’s primary goals together: making SpaceX a great place to work for all, and making humans a multiplanetary species.

As SpaceX employees we are expected to challenge established processes, rapidly innovate to solve complex problems as a team, and use failures as learning opportunities. Commitment to these ideals is fundamental to our identity and is core to how we have redefined our industry. But for all our technical achievements, SpaceX fails to apply these principles to the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion with equal priority across the company, resulting in a workplace culture that remains firmly rooted in the status quo.

Individuals and groups of employees at SpaceX have spent significant effort beyond their technical scope to make the company a more inclusive space via conference recruiting, open forums, feedback to leadership, outreach, and more. However, we feel an unequal burden to carry this effort as the company has not applied appropriate urgency and resources to the problem in a manner consistent with our approach to critical path technical projects. To be clear: recent events are not isolated incidents; they are emblematic of a wider culture that underserves many of the people who enable SpaceX’s extraordinary accomplishments. As industry leaders, we bear unique responsibility to address this.

Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks. 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.

SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated “No Asshole” and “Zero Tolerance” policies. This must change. As a starting point, we are putting forth the following categories of action items, the specifics of which we would like to discuss in person with the executive team within a month:

Publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior. SpaceX must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand.

Hold all leadership equally accountable to making SpaceX a great place to work for everyone. Apply a critical eye to issues that prevent employees from fully performing their jobs and meeting their potential, pursuing specific and enduring actions that are well resourced, transparent, and treated with the same rigor and urgency as establishing flight rationale after a hardware anomaly.

Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day.

We care deeply about SpaceX’s mission to make humanity multiplanetary. But more importantly, we care about each other. The collaboration we need to make life multiplanetary is incompatible with a culture that treats employees as consumable resources. Our unique position requires us to consider how our actions today will shape the experiences of individuals beyond our planet. Is the culture we are fostering now the one which we aim to bring to Mars and beyond?

We have made strides in that direction, but there is so much more to accomplish.

Bret Taylor @btaylor wrote: The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Elon Musk Moves to End $44 Billion Deal to Buy Twitter
In a regulatory filing on Friday, Mr. Musk said Twitter was in “material breach” of the acquisition agreement.

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Jul 08, 2022 6:40 pm RWNJ crew is trying to get #boycottTesla trending they haz an unhappy.

Twitter Inc. has hired merger law heavyweight Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP as it races to sue Elon Musk for moving to dump his $44 billion takeover of the company, according to people familiar with the matter.

The social media company aims to file suit early this week, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. By hiring Wachtell, it gains access to lawyers including Bill Savitt and Leo Strine, who served as Chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court, where the case will be heard.

Delaware is the corporate home to more than half of US public companies, including Twitter, and more than 60% of Fortune 500 firms. There, chancery judges -- business law experts -- hear cases without juries and can’t award punitive damages. Based on previous merger fights, efforts to terminate a deal can play out within a few months, often ending with settlements to avoid further wrangling.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona wrote: Kayleigh McEnany: "I, like many other conservatives, remember where I was on April 25 when this was announced, and I rejoiced! ... We want an equal playing field. Elon Musk was our hope, and it’s a disappointing day."

Chilidog wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 5:56 pm that didn’t take long

Twitter is suing Musk.

140. In the early morning of July 11 (Eastern time), Musk posted Tweets implying that his data requests were never intended to make progress toward consummating the merger, but rather were part of a plan to force litigation in which Twitter’s information would be publicly disclosed:

Screen Shot 2022-07-12 at 3.08.50 PM.png (364.45 KiB) Viewed 689 times

141. For Musk, it would seem, Twitter, the interests of its stockholders, the transaction Musk agreed to, and the court process to enforce it all constitute an elaborate joke.

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:03 pmThey don't likes him and thinks he is full of shit.

bob wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:18 pm

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:03 pmThey don't likes him and thinks he is full of shit.

Yet want the court to order him to comply with the merger agreement. (The complaint is silent about the $1B-walkaway fee.)

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:27 pmI read some businessplainer that said it was because Musk has irretrievably tanked Twitter's stock already and this was the best deal for the stockholders at this point.

Elon Musk @elonmusk wrote: Oh the irony lol

Irony: a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result:

78. On May 16, Agrawal Tweeted that Twitter’s 5% estimate is based on “multiple human reviews (in replicate) for thousands of accounts, that are sampled at random, consistently over time, from *accounts we count as mDAUs*.” He explained that the company’s human review process “uses both public and private data (eg, IP address, phone number, geolocation, client/browser signatures, what the account does when it’s active…) to make a determination on each account” — something Twitter also explains in its SEC filings. Agrawal stood by Twitter’s estimate, and noted that the company is constantly updating its systems
and rules to remove as much spam as possible: