Why this former SpaceX employee wrote an open letter condemning Musk’s behavior

Paige Holland-Thielen says she was fired from SpaceX after writing an open letter calling on the company to publicly condemn Elon Musk's behavior on social media and "to have a reasonable response to sexual harassment complaints." Eight former SpaceX employees filed labor-law complaints. #CNN #News

92 comments

    1. You issue he sees it as a target rather than a behaviour. He is trying to climb into Trumps atm by the looks of it. Joking aside, no-one should have to go through this. Its third world era.

  1. Good for you, for speaking out. Just because someone is the richest person in the world, does not mean they can not be scrutinized, accountable or learn and grow.

    1. @YesItsReallyKeithShe found another job a couple months ago. I know someone who works with her, she is extremely competent. She would be a fool to go back to the toilet environment that is SpaceX.

  2. I always thought musk was an intelligent person, however, his recent action over the past few months led me to drastically change my mind about buying anything with Musk name on it or think of him as an intelligent person.

    1. @MSIContent Wrote: _”Funny – a lot of really intelligent people respect him greatly. I wonder how he managed to fool them all…”_ I know an intelligent guy who thinks Musk is a visionary, but talking to him it is clear that he does not know much about him, just picked up a few snippets from mainstream media. He did not know about the Mars colony BS for example.

    2. @Indigo Sunset his history is a lot deeper and darker. I wouldn’t be surprised he doesn’t know about jet propulsion. However de does employ a lot of clever people who does and may have learned a bit from them.

    3. Musk is bloody clever AND no doubts he has achieved “beyond immaginable” at SpaceX and Tesla.

      I admire him for those achievements.

      I personally wish he had steered clear of Twitter BUT he didn’t…

      Musk like the rest has floors

  3. A very strong person with a solid backbone! She has my admiration! When people stay silent,injustice prevails! Thank you Ms Holland-Thielen for not staying silent!

    1. @john smeith ok there Mr Gatekeeper. This isn’t the 1950’s anymore ol boy so take you antiquated ideals and keep them to yourself. Thanks:)

    2. @UCx33O_2eFCjX4EuCvo8_1VQ ,how ignorant you are! You judge her by a piercing while knowing nothing about her and her achievements! Are you jealous? You can´t handle strong women and especially strong women with sound views? Shame on you! Keep your big nose out of commenting her looks and appearance and go take a look in the mirror,are you all that yourself? Would you like to be judged on your appearance and not your achievements? I think you wouldn´t like to get the same comments and treatment that you offer others! Weak of you!

    3. You don’t get fired for speaking… you get fire for suspect actions, bullying, endangering safety LIVES (SpaceX)….
      she`s just looking for a pay and 15 mins of fame… where was twitter before Musk took over to stop child abuse on Twitter… ??? you get fired in a Congress controlled(SpaceX) for endangering lives employees/Astronauts….

    4. @Kyle Reese ,you seem jealous frankly! You have no idea yet you speculate about something you know absolutely nothing about! That´s not the actions of a wise person. Lot´s of injustices and mishandlings are done in workplaces all around the country on a daily basis and in a country where you usually don´t have strong unions if unions at all this is more common than most people realizes so you are dead wrong in assuming she must have done something! Enough of you!

    5. B7 NASA just awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX the very lucrative and most technically challenging piece of the Artemis moon landing. This despite his sabotaging twitter with his trump like  hostile leadership style. There are consequences of having a controversial figure in charge of a very highly sensitive public facing program that symbolizes American achievement.

      Hy

  4. So a group of really smart people say, we’d like our dignity back and the company bails on them…corporate freedom in America.

    1. They are free to work somewhere else that would value their dignity. If SpaceX is as bad as they claim then the company would quickly crumble if people left. There are 2 jobs for every job seeker right now. so very easy to find a better job if their claim is true.

  5. I’m surprised that a supposedly advanced country doesn’t have employment laws to protect workers like this young lady.

    1. @Anna Sillanpaa  I wouldn’t act like the U.S. is the best place to work. We have no protections here because the billion dollar companies’ lobby (mostly Republican) politicians and America really only care about who’s giving them the most money. Finland, Norway, and pretty much the rest of the Netherlands, rate as some of the best countries to live in. Norway especially. Although Finland is also up there. Your experience might have been bad, but that doesn’t mean every woman has a problem working in your field in Finland. Just like your experience working in the U.S. has been good. For plenty of women, it’s been problematic. Finland is a country that is rated above the U.S. on every important metric. Don’t be jealous of people living here. I came to the U.S. as a refugee because of the propaganda that the U.S. is “the best country in the world.” I wish we went to a country in the Netherlands! The working class gets screwed here because capitalism and greed are out of control. All the money funnels to the top while we work hard to get scraps. But, if you ask someone wealthy… they’ll say it’s the greatest country in the world because it most benefits THEM. It’s all about perspective, and I’m on the side of the working class, aka my people.

    2. @EJK k I think you should read research. My experiences are not exception. They are rather the norm for female engineers in Finland. There is loads of research in this.

      For the countries, there are all kinds of rankings. US is good for someone that is eager to work hard & gets business sector education. Finland is good for social security but dreadful for women from career POV except politics & support roles. In Finland how you do your work has very little to do with your advancement.

    3. @Anna Sillanpaa  So, you’re saying everyone who works hard in the U.S. will be wealthy? Why am I not? I pull 36-hour days sometimes and always try my best. With that reasoning, 70% of the U.S. should be wealthy. As someone who lived in Iran, U.S., Austria. I can say the U.S. is better than Iran. Austria is better than both. All my research shows that Finland is even better than Austria. Women suffer here, too. I don’t know why you think women have it easy here. Your experience isn’t everyone else’s. You are literally in a video showing you a woman who was mistreated in a large company. You also don’t suffer from mass shootings every day. You don’t suffer from mass incarnations. You don’t suffer from 24k murders a year. You have universal healthcare. You have generally nicer people. America is a country for the rich who only care about themselves. Working here and living here are very different things. There’s a reason so many people in America are fed up with how it’s run. America is good for the sheer power of industrialization and GDP. That’s great… but what do we get? The people who keep this country running get scraps.

    4. @John Assal considering that the USA doesn’t even make the top 10 for quality of life and Finland does except in one category I’d say you are correct in that respect. Interestingly it’s number one in ceo world but drops off in human development. That probably explains why they need to improve equality in the workplace. They are close to Russia but only geographically. The mistrust and hate goes back farther than 1930.

  6. I think we’re going to see more Musk types and these situations emerge as money is now clearly valued over people. And I’m sorry for so many workers in this country who are making less and suffering from exorbitant medical bills etc while a small minority of millionaires and billionaires suck up all of the wealth of our nation.

    1. That is the reason why I currently am working on a proposal of an alternative currency to counteract our money-system which is designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Anyone interested in joinning, mail me on my channel-info-page.

  7. I’m glad that this info is becoming known, rich people think they can do anything they want and they never face any consequences. Glad people are speaking up more and more!

    1. Musk isn’t under the microscope from anyone save for the press agents of big government. We all know that governments hate the self employed, big or small.

    2. @Ilias Z. you anti nose ring dude? it’s there so you can pull on it when she’s going down on ya… reconsider your nose ring hate 🙂

  8. In the US the labour laws are week. In Canada an employee has every right under employment law to file a complaint against their company. And it’s illegal for that company to fire them for that reason. It’s call dismissal with out cause. The company is liable for large severance and the company may all receive a hefty fine if found guilty of terminating one’s employment for just filing a complaint. However the company is not compelled to rehire that employee if the court finds the company guilty. Btw Canadian labour law takes sexual harassment in the work place very seriously and it is the responsibility of the company to address such issues.

    1. That means it’s just like anywhere else in the world shut your effing mouth so you don’t get canceled because your government will not do a damn thing about it anyway! And you know you will be on The Blacklist!

    2. It’s the same in the United States, that’s why I know this girl is not being completely truthful about why she got fired😏. Women love to cry wolf nowadays😅.

  9. Wow I got fired for the same thing at a different tech company. I was getting harassed by an employee, I got mad and had a meeting with the CEO, HR and my supervisor. I was told to take the rest of the week of, then got fired by the end of the week. My complain didn’t even get heard.

    1. @Siraque  you should always be the kind of person to sue. You deserved compensation and that company deserved to be held accountable. Instead you just let them get away with hurting people. Great job dummy

  10. Great movement to get the company to take responsibility but she is not a clear communicator for what they are seeking and why. Need actual instances that are specific to get more people behind them. Cannot just state that the company did bad things.

  11. When I was young I had a favorite uncle. He was always the smartest person in the room and a brilliant engineer. He was very successful. He took me on a fishing trip to Canada witch was a big deal to a kid from a family that rarely traveled. Sadly on this trip I learned my uncle was not a good person and he treat his wife like his slave. I never visited him again. You can be brilliant and very successful and still be a miserable SOB. Then again many people worship wealthy people. I will never purchase a Tesla, thankfully we have options.

    1. @Walter Shumate she didn’t say Elon sexually harassed her.
      She did say it is going on within the company and nothing is being done about it. Maybe you should listen to the interview again.

    2. To all dissenter and praises of the almighty Elon….you are all clearly living under a rock. Do you research and prepare yourselves. Were it not for OTHER similar behaviors reported in different settings then I’d give this gal zero credibility…thing is…well don’t take my word find out for youselves. Buckle up.

  12. Imagine if politicians were this courageous and unselfish! It takes a young, (beautiful) woman to show the way.

    1. …what does her (appearance) have to do with anything? Isn’t that in a way partly what she’s talking about?

  13. Dang! First Twitter now SpaceX, that just to show this guy supposedly most intelligent person don’t know how to treat his employees. I don’t feel sorry for a guy like this lost 44 billions dollars or go bankrupt.

    1. 3 letters FTX.. care about those criminals.. employees are always bitter when they get kicked out and cnn grabs any story even bs ones for ratings

  14. Brave young lady for taking a public stand for her rights under the labor laws against major company in the space industry that’s under the control of Elon Musk.

  15. There are so many more of us than them so we support people like this and they need to know those that condemn them are not peoples whose opinion is worth listening to. Support whistle blowers and protect them!!!

  16. First time I have heard of an A” hole” policy in the corporate environment. Lol Also, you are not allowed to criticize the commander in chief as well in the US armed forces.

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