SpaceX has been accused by the US Labor Department of illegally firing eight employees based on an internal letter in which it sharply criticized CEO Elon Musk.
A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against SpaceX on Wednesday, alleging the company illegally interrogated, monitored and retaliated against workers, agency spokeswoman Kayla Blado said in an email. The fired workers include the authors of a 2022 open letter protesting Musk's “inappropriate, derogatory and sexually charged comments on Twitter,” their lawyers wrote when they filed the case in 2022.
The NLRB complaint alleges that SpaceX management told workers that it had terminated the employees based on their open letter, prevented others from distributing it, and threatened terminations if they took collective action said Blado.
“At SpaceX, the rockets are reusable, but the people who build them are treated as expendable,” one of the workers, Paige Holland-Thielen, said in an emailed statement. “I hope these allegations will hold SpaceX and its leadership accountable for their long history of mistreating workers and suppressing discourse.”
The company, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. known, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trial is scheduled to begin March 5, the NLRB said.
In June 2022, a group of employees distributed an open letter through internal SpaceX communications channels criticizing Musk's online behavior and calling on the company to denounce and distance itself from his public statements.
“Elon’s behavior in public spaces is often a source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter said.
Shortly after the letter was distributed at SpaceX, several employees involved in drafting the letter were fired.
Complaints filed by NLRB prosecutors are reviewed by agency judges, whose decisions can be appealed to NLRB members in Washington and then to federal court. The agency has the authority to require companies to reinstate fired workers and pay back wages, but generally cannot hold executives personally liable for alleged misconduct or award punitive damages.
Federal law protects the right of workers to communicate and protest collectively about their working conditions, with or without a union.
While Musk has declared himself a “free speech absolutist,” his companies have repeatedly been accused by the U.S. government of trying to silence workers. Last year, SpaceX settled a lawsuit alleging the company illegally attempted to suppress an employee's speech. Separately, Musk's social media company settled NLRB members have also ruled that Musk's electric car maker Tesla Inc. illegally fired an activist and that Musk threatened workers on social media; Tesla is appealing to the Federal Court.
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