SpaceX employees have reportedly been sacked for criticising founder Elon Musk's behaviour in an open letter shared on the company's internal chat system, days after the private rocket company completed three successful launches in a little more than 36 hours.
Musk's behaviour was described by employees as "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," the letter said, media reported.
Musk has expressed his support for a freer speech policy on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and is pursuing a US$44bn bid for the social media site.
In an earlier video-link address, Musk warned Twitter employees of job losses.
At SpaceX, the letter urged the company to "publicly address and condemn Elon's harmful Twitter behaviour" and "separate itself from Elon's personal brand," reports Reuters, and said the company's management be held "equally accountable" for workplace issues, and define its "zero tolerance" policies for unacceptable behaviour.
Several hundred employees endorsed the letter before it was taken off company networks.
SpaceX or Musk did not publicly respond to the open letter, but company president, Gwynne Shotwell, told employees in a June 16 memo "a number of employees" were fired for their involvement in the open letter.
Shotwell claimed "the letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views." and said that the letter was contrary to company policy and did "not show the strong judgment needed to work in this very challenging space transportation sector."
Shotwell said the letter was a distraction from the company's work on upcoming launches, "We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism."
SpaceX's stretch of launches started June 17 with a Falcon 9 launch from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, followed by the second launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
That placed into orbit the SARah-1 radar imaging satellite, built by Airbus Group (EPA:AIR) for the German military as a replacement for the existing SAR-Lupe system.
A third launch was from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with the only identified payload on the launch Globalstar FM15, a spare satellite for low Earth orbit satellite operator.