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Comment by memish | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX is the most ambitious company on Earth, working toward the goal of making humans a multi-planetary species.

Their orders are to get to Mars.

Employees that are bikeshedding, sowing internal discord, engaging in mutiny, are not working toward the goal and in fact actively hindering it. That's all the reason needed to prune them from the otherwise focused and ambitious team.

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Musk himself isn't "bikeshedding" and "sowing internal discord" with his behavior? I've worked at companies before, and if you've ever worked at a company you'd know garbage flows down from the top. His behavior as an executive affects everyone and the company's goals.

Yes, Elon should have his twitter taken away for distracting from the mission. 100% agree.

You could make the argument his twitter use is distracting from the mission and I agree in part. I think it's hard to say whether it's a net negative or positive for SpaceX and Tesla, because a lot of what he posts is about those companies. It might be better if he just stuck to that.

First off, I don’t think the average twitter user is in the market for a rocket so I don’t see the point. Second, the target demographic of Tesla is not people who are all in on voting Republican, they are a lot more likely to be affluent eco conscious types, so Elon shitposting about politics is definitely not great for the brand.

But Elon's hyperbolic tweets and offensive behavior don't actively hinder getting to Mars? I mean, he's the guy running the company, you'd think what he says and does would have a lot more influence over the success or failure of the company's goals.

Whether they are offensive is a personal opinion and it's fully your choice whether to take offense.

Personally I don't. I also don't take offense at anything Chris Rock or Ricky Gervais says. Others do take offense to what they say. That's their choice, their opinion, and not one that can or should be enforced on others.

But the point is his behavior causes problems and you're implying it's okay for him to act that way but anyone else to call him out is a problem. That doesn't foster good workplace values.

To a degree only. Some speech is generally considered offensive.

What those comedians say has zero effect on your career. Like it or not, Musk represents his employees. His childish babbling is actively hurting the reputation of the company these people work for. Thus, it is affecting their careers.

I'm not saying what they did is right or wrong but your outright dismissal of their (valid IMHO) concerns is missing lots of nuance.

I distinguished his hyperbolic tweeting and other public statements from his offensive behavior, such as his well-documented[1] misogyny and cruelty.

1 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-te...

What they cite is not an example of misogyny. The pedo guy thing is beyond the pale, but he acknowledged that it was wrong and a mistake. What more do you want? The rest of their examples, who cares. It's tame for Twitter standards. The article's author sounds like a wokescold who has too much time on their hands.

>But Elon's hyperbolic tweets and offensive behavior don't actively hinder getting to Mars?

Mhhh... I don't think so. We should consider also the possibility that his activity in Twitter could be beneficial for the company.

In fact it could accelerate the process of sending him to Mars as soon as possible.

Everybody is happy, so... keep tweeting? ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

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