SpaceX employees have posted an open letter to the company’s internal communication system asking leadership at the company to implement a number of measures, with the stated aim of ensuring that SpaceX’s actual “systems and culture” live up “to its stated values,” The Verge‘s Loren Grush reports. The letter specifically calls out Elon Musk’s behavior on Twitter, and the manner in which he has used the platform to respond to allegations of sexual harassment levied against him by an accuser in May.
The letter, which claims as its authorship “[e]mployees across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles,” calls for SpaceX leadership to “[P]ublicly address and condem Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior” in order to “explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand.”
It also asks that leadership be held equally accountable across the board for treating employee culture with “the same rigorous and urgency” as the company does when correcting hardware errors that lead to irregularities in SpaceX’s spaceflight activities. Finally, it seems better definition and enforcement of SpaceX’s so-called “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies that apply to employee behavior standards.
Just this past week, Musk has taken heat for publicly backing newly-elected congresswoman Mayra Flores, a Republican in Texas with a history of promoting QAnon, on Twitter, while maintaining that his political leanings are “moderate.”
We’ve reached out to SpaceX for comment but have not heard back as of publication. You can read the full text of the open letter, which is seeking additional employee signatures internally prior to being formally presented to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, on The Verge.