Managers also seemed supportive. Mr Edwards, the vice president, said at a meeting after the letter appeared that two of the three proposals were “great ideas”, according to minutes of the meeting shared internally and viewed by The Times. He said a third idea – that SpaceX separate from Mr Musk’s “personal brand” – was “tricker”.
But at the highest levels of the company, the reaction quickly turned hostile, employees said. Within hours, Mrs. Shotwell Mr. Molin and Mrs. Holland-Thielen sent an email in which she passed on comments from an unnamed colleague who disagreed with the letter and called it distracting. The information previously stated in the email.
“Please stop flooding employee communication channels immediately,” Ms Shotwell wrote in her email, copying senior company officials. She added: “I will consider ignoring my email as insubordination. Rather concentrate on your work.”
The next morning, news outlets reported on the open letter. By that afternoon, Mr. Moline, Ms. Holland-Thiel and three other employees were individually approached by Human Resources and told they were being fired. An official mentioned their role in drafting and distributing the letter, four of the employees said.
Ms. Shotwell took part in those conversations from a distance and stressed that the workers had wasted huge amounts of company time.
The employees were stunned. “We really tried to make this as palatable as possible to reasonable minds at SpaceX,” Ms. Holland-Thiel said. One of the employees’ lawyers, Anne Shaver of Lieff Cabraser, said the company had taken “cruel reprisals” against them.
Ms. Shotwell did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Wilma Liebman, who chaired the National Labor Relations Board under President Barack Obama, said a letter requesting clarification about a company’s sexual harassment policy is generally protected by federal labor law. She said the company could argue that the letter’s writers wanted to criticize Mr Musk, an activity that is not necessarily protected, rather than improve their workplace. But she said the labor council would likely disagree because Mr Musk’s posts criticizing workers could be seen as creating a hostile work environment.
