SpaceX Fires Workers After Letter Calls Elon Musk an 'Embarrassment,' Report Says

SpaceX has fired the employees involved in writing and sending a letter to company executives that expressed concern about the behavior of CEO Elon Musk and called for improvements to workplace culture, The New York Times reported Friday.

The open letter was reportedly posted Wednesday to an internal Microsoft Teams channel and said Musk's "behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks." It urged executives 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," according to a copy seen by The Verge. 

By Thursday, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in an email that the rocket company had "terminated a number of employees involved" with the open letter, according to the Times. It's unclear how many employees were fired. 

In the email, which was seen by the Times, Shotwell reportedly said that the "letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied," adding that "we have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism."

SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Musk, who's also the head of electric car company Tesla, is outspoken on Twitter and has more than 98 million followers. He has rankled people with tweets critics have called sexist and juvenile, among other things. The letter from SpaceX employees reportedly said that every tweet from Musk is seen as a "de facto public statement by the company." 

In the letter, employees asked the company to hold leadership responsible for fostering an inclusive workplace and to clearly define and enforce workplace culture policies. They specifically asked leadership to condemn the CEO's Twitter behavior. Musk is also trying to buy Twitter.

The letter comes nearly a month after reports that the company allegedly paid a $250,000 settlement to a flight attendant who said Musk exposed himself to her. Musk denied the allegations on Twitter, calling them "utterly untrue." Shotwell also reportedly defended Musk in an email to employees, saying she'd worked "closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations." 

Multiple women last year made allegations of sexual harassment at SpaceX, including a former engineer who wrote in an essay that the company's culture was in a "state of disrepair and dysfunction so great that the only remedy, finally, was to leave." 

Tesla has faced lawsuits over sexual harassment at one of its plants and was sued in February by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing for alleged racial discrimination and harassment. Tesla said in a blog post at the time that it "strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment and has a dedicated Employee Relations team that responds to and investigates all complaints."

It's unclear how many SpaceX employees signed the letter to executives.