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SpaceX illegally fired workers critical of Elon Musk, US labor agency says

January 03, 2024 at 02:28 pm EST

(Reuters) - Rocket and satellite maker SpaceX on Wednesday was accused by a U.S. labor agency of unlawfully firing eight employees for circulating a letter calling founder and CEO Elon Musk a "distraction and embarrassment."

A regional official with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint claiming SpaceX violated the workers' rights under federal labor law to band together and advocate for better working conditions, according to Kayla Blado, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The letter sent to SpaceX executives in June 2022 focused on a series of tweets Musk had made since 2020, many of which were sexually suggestive. The employees claimed Musk's statements did not align with the company's policies on diversity and workplace misconduct, and called on SpaceX to condemn them.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Chris Reese)

By Daniel Wiessner

Elon Musk

Mr. Elon R. Musk is a Chief Executive Officer at The Boring Co., a Technoking of Tesla at Tesla, Inc., a Chief Executive Officer & Director at Space Exploration Technologies Corp., a Chief Executive & Technology Officer at Spacex SA and a Co-Chairman at OpenAir, Inc. He is on the Board of Directors at Tesla, Inc., Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. and Musk Foundation. Mr. Musk was previously employed as a Trustee by California Institute of Technology, a Chairman by SolarCity Corp., a Chairman & Chief Executive Officer by PayPal, Inc., a Founder by Zip2 Corp., a Co-Founder by Neuralink Corp., a Co-Founder by OpenAI, Inc., a Non-Executive Director by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., and a Trustee by X PRIZE Foundation. He also served on the board at Everdream Corp. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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TESLA, INC.	Founder
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Aerospace & DefenseElectronic Technology Space Exploration Technologies Corp. designs, manufactures and launches rockets and spacecrafts. It develops the partially reusable launch vehicles Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. The company was founded by Elon Reeve Musk in 2002 and is headquartered in Hawthorne, CA.	Founder