I’ve been following Musk on Twitter for a few months and I haven’t seen anything worth condemning. His tweets often seem like thoughts off the top of his head, ie not written by a PR employee. It feels like the issue people have is with his tone. Perhaps people aren’t used to seeing public figures who doesn’t meticulously manage their image.
Almost everyone is beholden to an employer, a committee, or an oversight board of some kind so we all have to censor our public thoughts to a huge extent. I think some people are upset that Elon doesn’t have to, and they’re upset that he’s “above the law”.
Among other things, SpaceX is named in a lawsuit for Musk's shady behavior surrounding DogeCoin. One point in the letter seems irrefutable to me: as a de-facto spokesperson for SpaceX, he's causing problems for the company. Also, he openly relishes being an asshole, which sends a pretty weird message to a company with a "No Assholes" policy (whatever that means).
Folks on HN lauded the CoinBase stance that people should check their politics at the door; Musk is doing the exact opposite of that.
Highly suggest if you are ever on the Internet and find yourself getting hyped angry about something to shut it off.
You might note that I didn't say anything about my emotional state (calm, bemused) nor the viability of the class action suit. But to deny that the suit, and the complex of behaviors leading up to it, are not a distraction to Musk's companies and the employees thereof is patently absurd.
To insist that his subordinates put on blinders, ignore the news, and just focus on doing their jobs, don't speak up about their working conditions, is some peak totalitarian bullshit. We live in a free society, deal with it.
To paraphrase OC: how dare the new church criticize the old church!
Doing politicking on Twitter is fine as long as they don't bring it into work places. This is the reason why I don't follow my boss or any of my colleagues on Twitter beside that I don't do socmed much anyway.
How exactly? People can't focus on their work on engine design, or combustion simulation, or reentry trajectory because Musk is involved in some Twitter fights? Or maybe because Musk fails to be a role model? Are they kids, or grownups?
You missed the first sentence of my comment, then?
> Or maybe because Musk fails to be a role model? Are they kids, or grownups?
He's a petulant manchild, now that you mention it, a horrible role model for the company, its leadership on down. Is he fit to be a CEO, if he can't act like one?
He risked Tesla's value on a Twitter buyout, tanking them both. If his companies go under because of his immature trolling, the employees have nothing to be "grateful" for. Companies exchange equity and cash for labor. Gratitude and loyalty are not part of the bargain, and must be earned through sustained effort.
I'd imagine that a lot of people wouldn't feel good about the workplace sexual harassment. It's kind of a downer if your employer enables your boss to do bad things to your colleagues.
When I started reading this comment I thought "this has the potential to be an interesting take on why people dislike Musk, but I suspect it's to go off the rails and become another tribal rant about 'woke' culture" and I was not disappointed.
Why would anyone care about his opinions on Elden Ring? He should do what every other CEO is doing and keep the focus on growth at his companies.
Musk called Bill Gates fat because he shorted Tesla stock. Is that a pleasant surprise? A breath of fresh air? Finally, someone is speaking their mind!
Musk doesn’t have to be woke. All he has to do is be professional and that will clean up his image.
He posted a meme about Gates being fat because Gates asked him for money to “support the environment” while shorting Tesla stock. One can argue which action is more insulting than the other. For sure one shouldn’t mention one while omitting the other.
It's often impossible to separate the content of the message from the tone.
Back when I was a student, there was a professor emeritus of communications who liked to say things like "communication usually fails, except by accident". The idea was that if you intend to say something but many people interpret it otherwise, that was you failure to communicate. Musk is certainly smart enough to realize that his tone changes the meaning of what he says, but he keeps doing it anyway. That makes him a kind of a troll.
The thing with trolls is that people often don't like them. They may barely tolerate trolls they agree with and actively hate ones they disagree with.
Musk reminds me of another person: a former communist (of the minority faction who supported the USSR) who later made a 180-degree turn and became a successful investment banker. He is one of the richest people in Finland who didn't inherit their fortune, and he is probably also one of the most hated people in the country. And he genuinely enjoys trolling. Often when business leaders or right-wing ideologists have something that needs saying but can't be said aloud, they let him say it.
> Back when I was a student, there was a professor emeritus of communications who liked to say things like "communication usually fails, except by accident".
That's him. His "laws" probably arose from his frustrations when he was in the parliament, and he didn't intend anyone to take them too seriously.
Today, as far as I understand, people who are trying to be serious communications professionals approach the same issues from a constructive angle. They try to minimize the chances for misunderstanding, which leads to those bland and thoroughly vetted corporate communications.
At best, Musk has responsibilities to the company, its shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders, and Musk is choosing public behavior that risks, rather than serves those responsibilities. The behavior is clearly not chosen to help those parties, and that's Musk's job.
The subtext is the unspoken 'culture war' - everyone sees it, so it's a bit bizarre to me that it's unspoken - between, on one hand, a subculture in society (including on the Internet and in business) that celebrates power (including its abuse and corruption) and disruption; and on the other hand, one that advocates responsibility, basic human dignity, productivity, and innovation.
IMHO, the former subculture, of power and disruption, is indefensible. Maybe that's why the contest is unspoken, and instead we debate Musk's behavior as a proxy.
Sure. I'm not suggesting the term originated a decade ago, but when people say "the culture war" colloquially today they are typically referring to the ongoing debate over topics like racism, sexism, wealth inequality, and "cancel culture" that has been ongoing on twitter, in the media, and in companies etc.
The medium may have changed, but 1920s USA was still in the middle of legally mandated racial segregation; close to the beginning of women’s voting; and communism, trade unions, and taxation/redistribution were certainly still topics of discussion.
While I suspect that all the info I have about what people actually thought of those things is biased by the beliefs of the people telling me today, the issue of taxation and wealth redistribution was listed in my GCSE (UK highschool) history of Great Depression USA and the transition from Hoover to Roosevelt.
I’d expect 1% (120) of virtually any group that size to assent to almost any proposition no matter how ridiculous, some genuinely and others only though misunderstanding it (and yes, misunderstanding is still possible with smart people, been there done that both ways around). 12 people would mean it wasn’t popular enough to share with everyone.
> The Verge's sources also shared screenshots of a supportive Microsoft Teams discussion between 100-plus employees. The Teams channel where the letter was posted reportedly has more than 2,600 members.
>The Teams channel where the letter was posted reportedly has more than 2,600 members.
there's a lot of spam posted in large company channels that doesn't drive any engagement.
The Verge is eager to play up the significance of this effort to drive clicks, as they're "breaking" this story. They've timed the release well to capitalize on the Elon coverage
He uses his same Twitter channel to announce plans for his companies and to use “pedos” as slang to describe others and talk up shitcoins. It is his fault that people confuse his private life and his fiduciary responsibilities because he doesn’t distinguish them.
>Elon on twitter is obviously speaking as and for Elon, not representing a specific company.
This is absolutely incorrect. I don't know about SpaceX, but Tesla notified the markets in a 2013 filing that it intended to use Musk's Twitter account for official announcements. There was very well-covered SEC enforcement that followed.
He just needs to update his profile to say "Opinions are my own. RT != endorsement".
Then you can say whatever you want. Even journalists can blatantly lie. It gives you complete indemnity! Those are the rules of engagement bestowed upon most blue-checks on Twitter.
Is this the same source of legal advice that said people could ignore covid regulations by sticking a printout of the famous Magna Carta in their window? :P
Maybe they could get him to stop lying about colonizing Mars, while they're at it.
(Starship is wholly inadequate to even start colonizing Mars. It might be just barely adequate to start an outpost with a half-dozen staff. It probably could support an active moon base.)
He has anyway not lied about the possibility of suborbital passenger or freight service lately, to my knowledge. BTW, Shotwell has, too.
Starters, it takes a hell of a lot more than freight to make a colony.
Starship is wholly inadequate to take more than 17 crew to Mars; that would be if you don't mind some killed on the way there. So, you send 4 or 5 cargo ships, 500 tons of stuff, and two ships swinging on the ends of a cable, so their bones don't melt on the way there. (Which, BTW, takes 9, not 6, months.) Maybe one is a spare, with everything duplicated. The main ship fits 8 crew with just-tolerable comfort, with stuff you will actually need for 9 months unimaginably distant from all possibility of help. Change of underwear, you think? Water, food. Air? Space suits, to go outside when they arrive? Maybe a hand truck.
They get there, and now have to unship and set up 500 tons of crap. It only weighs 170-some tons, which is not much better. Set up a massive solar farm and methane and oxygen factory. Debug it. Assemble vehicles, freight handlers, bulldozer and excavator. Individual pod huts, so crew can sometimes get away from others they have come to detest.
Look around and think, "This place is a dump." Because every last detail is way worse than the worst place on Earth. Cold, dim, featureless, bone dry, dusty. The dust sticks to everything, seemingly leaping up to soil any clean surface.
Enough is enough, but nobody can go home until the launch window opens, and the fuel is banked.
I'd think most people would be living indoors in a controlled climate and wouldn't suffer the adjectives you threw out. Is it much different than those who volunteer to live on the ISS?
The difference is instead of walking out in space every now and then you occasionally work outside in an alien world. The dust storms would be intense, you probably wouldn't leave shelter then, but if you've ever been out in the desert, it can be really beautiful.
Personally give me internet and A/C and I can stay anywhere for years, outside time or not, it's what I do now essentially. The alien backyard work is a bonus.
Different strokes for different people. You don't seem to have a settler attitude, and that's okay.
They’ve been pretty transparent that the plan is for hundreds of starships. Not just one. Obviously they can’t do it with just one ship. A lot of the issues you’re referencing decrease dramatically with every additional ship. Hundreds of tons of cargo to unload? Not really an issue if you give them a lot of heavy equipment. Energy requirements would be pretty small. Oxygen and water for a few dozen people is a solved problem on subs. Radiation is sort of solved if you live on the ship after landing.
You’ll still probably die of course but the point stands that the logistics side of the equation seems fine with startships.
You need the hundreds of ships just to get the fuel for a few Mars ships to orbital refueling depots.
If one crewed ship of 8 colonists needs, say, five cargo ships for support equipment for that population on Mars, and a seventh as counterweight for centrifugal gravity en route, that is 77 launches. The six that land on Mars don't get re-used, although their superheavies do.
The point here is that you need an absurdly large number of launch events just to provide for 8 colonists. Multiply that out to a million colonists, and you exceed the industrial capacity of the world. And, even a million colonists is very, very, very far from self-sufficient.
Musk blathers about 1M colonists all the damn time. Almost embarrassed for him: not sure whether because he believes it could happen, or would be enough.
None of that makes Starship an inadequate part of the plan, especially given the vision of making a very big fleet of them and the colony taking the best part of a century to establish.
(To add to your list: I wouldn’t want to be stuck somewhere where Musk was in change, but again, that’s not a Starship problem per se).
It means there is no physical way just with Starship to get even a million colonists there. And, a million colonists is nowhere near self-sufficient anyway.
The minimum colony size I might believe (I think Musk was fairly clear that number was a wild guess), but you really need to do more than merely assert your claim that Starship can’t get a million people to Mars.
8 people per Starship (which you have not justified, given its 100-150 tons to LEO design and refuelling in LEO for such missions and the 1000m^3 interior volume; I’ve shared a 70m^3 apartment with another person comfortably for longer than the trip duration, and that’s 14 such units and 28 people in the same volume, and my university accommodation was much denser even than that, so what machinery fraction do you imagine?), and let’s say they can transit one way on each conjunction even though that’s probably only true for the first few trips before fuel generation and storage is done reliably prior to arrival, is still 200 per vehicle-in-the-fleet per century, or million people in a century with a fleet of 5000 Starship-equivalent vehicles. Which is a lot of Starships, but there are more 737s, so it’s not like aerospace can’t be built at this scale.
Now, criticism of Musk’s target price per seat given your beliefs of the maximum occupancy per vehicle to Mars, that would make more sense.
As would arguing that once you have Starship as a launch vehicle, it would make more sense to use it to build some Aldrin cyclers rather than use Starship for everything.
Oh, and we may ban it from operation at that scale because of the environmental concerns. That’s certainly possible.
But that’s not what it looks like you’re doing, it looks like you’re saying it can’t rather than it will be too expensive or that its mere existence creates better solutions or it might be held back for legal reasons.
So? Nothing you've listed is even close to being a meaningful failure mode, especially this early into the development lifecycle when the design is being changed significantly every year.
Everything I've listed is similar to saying "I know the Model T is limited, but you must try harder if you wish to convince people that Henry Ford is a liar and the automobile cannot replace the horse".
I was unable to find actual published numbers. The only figure I found is that a starship spec’d specifically for comfortably carrying crew members can carry about 100 people.
I think the reason I can’t find an answer to the general case is that you wouldn’t typically have any crew on board a starship that’s designed for cargo.
The 100 number is another lie. It has enough room for 200 on a transatlantic flight, but for a 9-month flight in space, you you need to carry a very great deal more stuff along. An overhead luggage bag each does not suffice.
NASA figures are a maximum of 17 in that volume, and then only if you leave behind, e.g., spacesuits, and they sleep the whole way.
Really? I need a source to explain why provisioning for a 9-month one-way spaceflight is different from a transatlantic flight with food and air where you open the door 8 hours later?
I don't really trust YouTube videos. You mentioned "NASA figures", do you know where to find them on https://ntrs.nasa.gov/ ? If NASA has actually done analysis on this, and made the results publicly available, I'd expect to find it published there (or else maybe in some journal article).
All I have to say about this is thank goodness for Gwynne Shotwell and JB Straubel. They adult so that Ol' Musky doesn't have to.
Like, thank you Musk for backing smart people like Gwynne and JB and giving the powder that they need to fire their flintlocks of excellence.
Dislike, no thank you Musk for your distracting and pointless pre-occupation with meme currencies and "I am 14 and I just read Heinlein and this is deep"-tier libertarian twitterings.
Saying free-speech principles are important in the public square, which he asserts Twitter et al are part of, is very different from tolerating all forms of speech from your own employees in the context of their job.
He claimed to be a free speech absolutist, not a supporter of free speech principles. I chose to read that as a highly intelligent person using the words he wants to use to describe his position accurately, I also expect him to live by that position given he has the means to do so.
It's his company and they chose to work there. It's like repeatedly patronizing a restaurant then loudly complaining how much the chef sucks. You're free to eat elsewhere or build your own spaceship company.
They are free to complain too, and in this case Musk can fire them and try to find other talented people to replace them - if that is in the best interests of the shareholders and other stakeholders. There is nothing special about Musk's side of the argument or Musk's leverage; the employees have leverage too.
But really the goal is to make SpaceX as productive as possible, to do something productive for the world, not to serve Musk's whims. If there is a trade-off between the whims and the productivity, it's clear which should be sacrificed.
So a cockpit crew should shut up and follow their captain obediently into destructive failure, since they chose to fly under him, while being free to choose any other carrier to work with?
Yes. The person in the left seat of an aircraft is unquestionably in charge and responsible for the safety of the crew and passengers. An aircraft is not a commune; there is a chain of command. If you don't like it you can leave.
You are allowing your emotions and dislike of Musk to cloud your judgement.
Corporations are neither aircraft nor ships at sea. They're subject to boards and other mechanisms to check the power of the chief executive. There are unofficial ways to express dissatisfaction or no-confidence towards that leader, without it being considered outright mutiny.
Agreed. However nothing annoys me more than people who join a company only to immediately start complaining about how much they dislike the culture. It just so happens the culture at SpaceX revolves around one guy. You can... leave... if you don't like it. Everyone knows this yet we're all supposed to act like SpaceX engineers were trafficked here in shipping containers and working to pay off a slave debt. No. The money is likely too good so they'd rather complain instead. The entitlement expressed by the individuals involved has buried the needle.
I think it's fair to want money/a job, and pursue getting hired for one, but then also be interested in improving the culture or working conditions of the job once you start working there.
You say they are entitled - high skill, difficult to replace workers are actually entitled to make demands of their employer which are proportional to the value they offer, in particular when they act collectively.
This is like the person who moves next to an airport, paying less than they would otherwise, and then complains incessantly and wants the airport to stop operating, it's called "coming to the nuisance". SpaceX is well known for not being "money/a job", it's extremely intense. If you join it without realizing that, despite how infamous it is for that, then that's totally on you. You kinda have to want to do really hard things that have never been done before to make it worth it.
If you just like rockets, and want some work-life balance, you can always apply for the SLS team, or Boeing Starliner.
I'm a business owner and hiring skilled employees is literally the hardest part of my job. If my employees are unhappy about something, then I am grateful that they have given me the chance to hear about it and maybe fix it rather than having them quit without warning, leaving me with customer deadlines and empty chairs.
I get what you’re saying, I have similar experience, but they’ve pretty clearly chosen iteration/execution speed over a low attrition/burnout rate. And that’s fine, different strokes for different folks. It seems to be working out fine for them so far, 20 years in. If I didn’t have kids whose childhood I wanted to be a big part of, I’d certainly consider throwing myself at trying to help make Starship work.
>Yes. The person in the left seat of an aircraft is unquestionably in charge and responsible for the safety of the crew and passengers. An aircraft is not a commune; there is a chain of command. If you don't like it you can leave.
That's not how it works with Crew Resource Management.
The point is that employer-employee relationships are inherently imbalanced. A corporation has far more freedom to make choices like that than their employees.
No, you can't just "get another job" if all the companies are abusing employees in the same way.
The fact that corporations are set as mini-dictatorships never made sense to me. Everyone's at the mercy of the whims of the CEO.
Karl Marx said that workers should own the means of production, and this is exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. In capitalism, shareholders have more power over the company than those doing the day-to-day work who know the business, and those shareholders could easily tell Musk to tone it down if they wanted to – and Musk would listen.
The employees could never sway him. "Take it or leave it," which really just means "go work for the other asshole."
I think it wouldn't be such a bad thing if corporations had mandatory employee democracy on certain workplace issues. I think the ownership class has too much power over the individual. Just because you own assets shouldn't mean you get to play games with people's livelihoods.
Ehm yeah, thank God planes do not fly like this. The two pilots and the rest of the crew communicate and coordinate or we would have a lot of accidents.
There is a reason planes still have two pilots -- and it is not that the need two or even one to function most of the time.
PIC does not order anyone around, but is the actor/writer. The other pilot verifies and overrides/calls issues. And certain operations, for instance during take off, are done together.
Maybe companies work that way, but if you fly a plane with that approach, I am joining as the second, crew or passenger.
I thought the whole point of modern cockpit rules was to prevent that sort of unquestioning obedience that has caused thousands of deaths over the years.
Disclaimer: The reply was made in good faith that the reader might be familiar with the term 'crew resource management' and its historical contribution to flight safety. – So, sorry for the inappropriate reply.
It appears I misunderstood what you were after. Yes there have been examples of this in the past; I assumed you were suggesting mutiny as a general rule. That said my comment still stands:
The U.S. CFR Title 14, Part 1, Section 1.1 defines "pilot in command" as:
...the person who:
Has final authority and responsibility for the operation and safety of the flight
It is also about the shared responsibility of the crew. E.g., the board has installed a set of rules regarding corporate culture, and this for a reason, namely to provide a climate for achieving best results, avoiding distractions and material damages. It's a shared responsibility of everybody in this environment to have an eye on whether the company lives up to these standards or not, in order for this to work. (Mind that the open letter directly addresses these codes.)
Edit: Mind that there is an obvious conflict between positions like, "you do as I say, because my money", and the complex relations that constitute a corporate business.
However, this doesn't include defining responsibility. This definition comes from elsewhere and involves and includes other positions, as well.
Also, "final" implies an iterative process of multiple steps, like a discussion. (Which in turn implies a certain degree of openness to such a process.) Otherwise, it would be "exclusive" or "total".
Your childish personal attack fails because it's more akin to deliberately moving to a country ruled by a despot or dictator then declaring "Wow it really sucks here! I'm going to send a sternly-worded open letter to the management."
This is an incredibly immature argument. People only complain about things they care about, and the louder they voice their concerns, the more they care. It’s much easier to be silent and apathetic and just move on.
This is less “the chef sucks” and more “the chef just pissed his name on the local community center building”.
I’d argue there probably isn’t enough substance to the complaint yet (Space-X brand is probably still a net positive having him in front of the company), but your line of argument would cause a quiet brain drain from organizations, not keep them healthy with open discussion. The fact that this open letter was described outside of the company might be the only reason I might side with you.
100% this. If it's really sooo bad, why wouldn't you just leave instead of staying in order to suffer and create mischief? Musk built the company. It's his. It's revolutionary. Go elsewhere if you don't like it. One has to ask questions about the true motives behind it - Musk has powerful enemies including Biden etc, lest we forget.
Because it’s possible to be passionate about rocketry and spaceflight, and what SpaceX has accomplished, and be proud of how you’ve contributed to that…
…and then be quite concerned that the CEO’s attention is seemingly quite scattershot now, and perhaps too focused on a social media site that nobody outside the chattering class uses.
Eh, I don't know about this one. I can't stand Musk, but im also not going to believe the company gives 0 shits about anything you have to say that's not helping them out. I'd rather just quit. I spent too many years fighting fights I couldn't win.
Almost everyone is beholden to an employer, a committee, or an oversight board of some kind so we all have to censor our public thoughts to a huge extent. I think some people are upset that Elon doesn’t have to, and they’re upset that he’s “above the law”.
Woke culture truly is the new church.