> This is a very predictable consequence of criticizing your employer via a public letter.
The first thing that comes to mind when reading this is "So what?"
Yes, it's predictable. I don't believe people who wrote the letter haven't thought of this potential consequence and haven't felt any trepidation whatsoever.
So what if it's "predictable"? So what if it's legal? The point is not whether it's currently legal and whether it's predictable. The point is whether it's right.
How does stating that "it's predictable" address the very real and ugly problems in this whole situation?
It might be perceived as right and acceptable to some folks because of their definition of morality and behavior, and it might be a common enough understanding of those morals in 2022. It’s PC. However, its not a good precedent for a company to tolerate because moral attitudes change.
If a bunch of hyper fundamentalist evangelical Christian SpaceX employees wrote a letter saying that their CEOs behavior and values did not line up with their Christian values and behavior expectations, and for the company’s success, the leadership needed to condemn publicly the CEO’s actions? Would that be ok? What if they started actively proselytizing their morality to the other employees? Attempting to stir up dissent to the point where it was detrimental to company productivity?
This latest type of activism is PC, so that is the only reason its even discussed. Other activism like the above example is perhaps not as PC and most folks would not even care…or would be on the other side of the issue.
Did you read the actual letter? I ask becasue it's not included in the NYT article, so I'm not sure whether your complaints about political correctness and your comparison with Christian values stem from not knowing the contents of the letter or something else.
There are basically three problems the open letter highlights and asks the leadership to address. They're wrapped in polite, corporate-appropriate language, but I'll express them here in plain, blunt, non-PC words:
- SpaceX is supposed to be bigger than just Elon Musk. Elon's shitposting on social media is harming the whole company, and the employees will end up suffering because Elon keeps putting his ego before the company.
- The so-called leadership, as it happens all too often, keeps talking the talk, but they don't walk the walk. They say they care about making SpaceX a great place to work, but that's just bullshit as long as they turn a blind eye to the toxic fuckery at SpaceX.
- The company policies are bullshit. Using words like "asshole" to sound cool and non-PC does not replace having an actual policy. "Zero tolerance" means fuck-all if you selectively tolerate stuff, and "no-asshole policy" is either too vague or isn't enforced.
Basically, it boils down to being sick of the toxic corporate LARPing you see in a certain kind of techbro companies, where suits pretend to be cool and down with the techies by using words like "asshole" to show how they value "straight talk" and therefore you can totally trust them not to fuck you over.
I hope that was non-PC enough to help explain what the letter says, for anyone who hasn't actually read it.
On the off chance that you did read the letter and you really decided that it's no different from "a bunch of hyper fundamentalist evangelical Christian SpaceX employees" demanding that their CEO behave according to their values, then I would like to point out two details you might have overlooked:
1. That would be perfectly understandable if the company itself claimed to hold and represent those values. If the employees of the hypothetical Every-Zygote-Is-Sacred LLC wrote a letter complaining about how their CEO kept tweeting about how much they loved and supported Planned Parenthood, then they would have a point, regardless of whether you or I were pro- or anti-abortion.
2. Regardless of what company policies say about the company values, many companies have a policies about social media, along the lines of "don't tweet anything that would negatively affect the company, not even on your personal account". People can, and do, get fired for breaking that policy. Complaining about how the CEO of the company keeps blatantly breaking that policy and actively harming the company in the process might be naive, but it's certainly understandable.
In conclusion: yeah, I think it's right and acceptable for SpaceX employees to complain about the unprecedented level of toxicity from their CEO.
EDIT: I accidentally a word in the last paragraph.
And I think that a small group of employees attempting to impose their own chosen morality whatever that morality may be and proselytizing their morality to the point where it was disruptive to productivity and harmful to company morale and culture (and this is what got them fired BTW, not the opinion of Musk’s behavior itself) is wrong. An organization will not survive if it kowtows to every special interest employee group that throws a tantrum.
If you don’t like what Musk who owns the controlling interest in your company is doing, buy him out. If you can’t buy him out, move on and work someplace else. Acting in a disruptive manner because you are butthurt about your CEO/company owner is just ridiculous.
It's not okay for a small group of employees to try to impose their chosen morality, but it's okay for one person to impose his own morality on the whole company, because he owns the controlling interest in it.
More importantly, that same person who owns the controlling interest has no responsibilities or obligations towards the company as a whole.
Did I get that right?
And while we're on the topic of what each of us finds ridiculous, how about the fact that whenever someone suggests that a publicly traded company should do something slightly idealistic, people always bring up fiduciary duty towards the shareholders, but it gets overlooked when we're talking about one billionaire's "right" to drive his company's value into the ground by shitposting on social media, because "he's the owner, he can do what he wants".
Regardless of all that, one point that keeps being overlooked -- and at this stage of discussion, where it has been pointed out repeatedly, it's pretty obvious that it's being overlooked on purpose -- is that they're not trying to impose any morality. They're asking for two things: 1) hold Musk accountable for harming the company, 2) define what "no-asshole" and "zero tolerance" policies actually mean and enforce them.
That's not morality. That's common sense and consistency.
EDIT: Also, what's more likely to bring the company morale go down: seeing its owner sabotage it because of his ego, or an internal letter criticizing him for doing that?
Yes. Like it or not there is a difference between “the person who signs the paychecks” and the person receiving the signed paycheck. C-level employees and folks who own controlling interests don’t always have to play by the same rules, even the rules they themselves set for the other employees.
> one point that keeps being overlooked -- …(shortened for brevity)… -- is that they're not trying to impose any morality.
But they are, though. They are being disruptive to the business because of their morality. If you are unhappy with the bosses behavior outside the organization because of your moral code, but I, a fellow employee, am fine with or frankly don’t care what the boss does outside the organization—and then you spam me on company communication platforms trying to organize dissent based on your moral code you are in essence demanding conformity to your beliefs in a way that is disruptive.
> Also, what's more likely to bring the company morale go down: seeing its owner sabotage it because of his ego, or an internal letter criticizing him for doing that?
In my opinion a small group of employees being intentionally disruptive and causing public drama would be more likely to cause morale issues for me.
It’s not like Musk’s personality and tweeting was unknown. His political leanings shift and all of a sudden he and his behavior is intolerable? Please.
> It’s not like Musk’s personality and tweeting was unknown. His political leanings shift and all of a sudden he and his behavior is intolerable? Please.
Well, at least you're finally willing to address my points about their letter not being about the morality, instead of hoping those points would go away ;)
When his political leanings "shifted", that's when his behavior started going against the company's own rules and actively damaging the company. Now, you might believe that the former is okay, because he signs their paychecks -- which is just another way of saying "might makes right" -- but I don't know how you justify the latter to yourself. That's another point you keep dodging: Musk's behavior is actively damaging the company.
You can shift the blame to "cancel culture", if you want, but the fact remains that certain behaviors can, and do, affect any company not just in terms of morale, but in terms of its ability to do business. This has been well known for ages and has, in fact, been exploited by one extreme of the political spectrum. It only got labeled "cancel culture" when it got turned against that extreme.
And that's the political aspect of this whole conversation that I was trying to avoid, because discussing politics with strangers is about as pleasant as a root canal, but since you can't let it go, then let's go: yes, regardless of whether the letter itself was about the employees' morality or not, certain "political leanings" are, in fact, intolerable.
When you say "all lives matter", for example, that's where you cross the line into outright racism. It's not like "all lives matter" is a new thing someone invented yesterday and that's why people are being fooled into taking it at face value. It's been around for quite a while, and it's extremely easy to understand that it's only ever brought up as a response to "black lives matter" and why that response is racist.
Racism should be intolerable.
And that's just one of the things Musk did on Twitter. So yes, regardless of whether or not this letter is about morality, his shift in political leaning should be considered intolerable. If you really think that "racism is not okay" is something that is being forced on everyone in SpaceX against their wishes, then you're basically saying the majority of SpaceX employees are racists.
> So yes, regardless of whether or not this letter is about morality, his shift in political leaning should be considered intolerable.
And that is the crux of the controversy. Finally you admit what this is really behind this. Musk’s political leanings are intolerable to you and to these employees and you don’t want to tolerate his behavior. They are creating disruption because of their intolerance by spamming other employees to try and “convert” them.
The lovely thing about “at will” employment is that you don’t have to work at a place that doesn’t fit your values and a company doesn’t have to employ you if you don’t fit their values.
He might have built the company, but he isn't the company. Building the company doesn't give him the moral right to run it into the ground or make it toxic. He might have that legal right, but I explicitly said that I'm not talking about that.
How does one create a thing and then lose the moral right to destroy said thing? That's not something I think you'll be able to justify to me. Just because it's destruction may hinder other people doesn't mean that it isn't the creators right to do so.
When other people's livelihoods depend on the thing you created, you lose the moral right to wantonly destroy it. When what you built stops being wholly yours, you lose the moral right to wantonly destroy it.
I agree once over 50% ownership has transferred you lose the moral right to destroy it. I should have clarified and said the one creates and owns, or even just owns really.
I disagree with the other assertion that you lose the moral right to destroy it. Does he have the moral right to fire his employees? I hope you'd agree with me that he does. And in this case he'd just be firing all of them.
It's not about math. It's about responsibility, both in the case of ownership and in the case of people depending on you.
You asserted that he has a moral right to destroy the company because he built it. He might have built it, but it doesn't matter if he now owns 54% or 90% or 10% of it, it stopped being just his. He can't just say "screw it, I'm bored, let's just burn it down to the ground".
That responsibility is even greater when it comes to the people who depend on you, who put their livelihood in their hands because they believe in your company. Not necessarily in you, but certainly in what you created.
Let me put it this way: if you knew that the person in charge of company X is a volatile, irresponsible person incapable of putting the good of the company before their own ego, someone who doesn't care enough for the company, would you go work for that company?
Musk's behavior is damaging the company. His employees are objecting to that, among other things. They are right to do so.
As for whether he has the moral right to fire his employees indiscriminately solely by virtue of having created the company? No, he doesn't, for the same reasons I described above.
Does he have the right to fire his employees for the right reasons? Of course, but that's not the case here. That's what I was pointing out when you asserted that he certainly has the right to fire them just because he built the company.
Looks like we're at an impasse as we just fundamentally disagree. Indiscriminate should be federally legal and fortunately is in many states. I believe he every bit has the moral right to fire indiscriminately and burn his company to the ground if he wants while he retains majority ownership.
The first thing that comes to mind when reading this is "So what?"
Yes, it's predictable. I don't believe people who wrote the letter haven't thought of this potential consequence and haven't felt any trepidation whatsoever.
So what if it's "predictable"? So what if it's legal? The point is not whether it's currently legal and whether it's predictable. The point is whether it's right.
How does stating that "it's predictable" address the very real and ugly problems in this whole situation?