THE FIRST AMENDMENT APPLIES TO YOU FUCKER!
Thin Skin: NLRB Claims SpaceX Illegally Fired Employees for Criticizing Elon Musk
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has claimed that SpaceX illegally terminated eight employees who circulated a letter critical of CEO Elon Musk’s public behavior.
The New York Times reports that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has made serious allegations against SpaceX, the space transport services company led by CEO Elon Musk. In a recent filing, the NLRB claims that SpaceX wrongfully terminated eight employees who had been vocal in their criticism of Musk’s public conduct. These employees had distributed a letter internally, which pointedly criticized Musk’s behavior on social media, particularly focusing on his handling and response to sexual harassment allegations against him.
Elon Musk’s Halloween costume (Taylor Hill /Getty)
The letter called for the company to take a clearer and more consistent stance on harassment issues. It specifically requested the enforcement of policies that would prevent similar incidents and foster a safer, more respectful work environment. However, instead of addressing these concerns, SpaceX is accused of retaliating against the employees involved by terminating their employment. This move, according to the NLRB, is a violation of federal labor laws that protect employees’ rights to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid and protection.
Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the employees who was fired, stated: “At SpaceX the rockets may be reusable, but the people who build them are treated as expendable. I am hopeful these charges will hold SpaceX and its leadership accountable for their long history of mistreating workers and stifling discourse.”
The complaint filed by the NLRB details further alleged misconduct by SpaceX executives. Notably, it includes an instance involving President Gwynne Shotwell, who is said to have intervened to stop the spread of the letter criticizing Musk.
This legal challenge against SpaceX is not an isolated incident in Musk’s corporate empire. One of Musk’s other companies, Tesla, has been previously sanctioned by the labor board for illegally firing an employee involved in union organizing. Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter and subsequent mass layoffs, including the termination of individuals who publicly disagreed with him, have caused many to accuse Musk of being unable to handle dissent within his companies.
These recent allegations against SpaceX also add to the company’s troubled history with employee relations. A 2021 report revealed allegations of unaddressed sexual harassment claims within the company. Additionally, a 2018 incident involved Musk himself, who was accused of propositioning an employee, a claim that he has vehemently denied.
Breitbart News reported in May of 2022 that Musk was accused of sexually harassing a flight attendant in 2016. Breitbart News wrote:
According to Business Insider, a SpaceX flight attendant has accused Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk of exposing himself and propositioning her for sex in 2016. According to the report, Musk offered the woman a horse in exchange for an erotic massage.
…The flight attendant worked on a contract basis for the SpaceX corporate jet fleet when Musk allegedly exposed his erect penis to her, rubbed her leg, and offered to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage. According to the report, SpaceX paid the flight attendant a $250,000 settlement based on her misconduct claim against Musk.
The NLRB has scheduled a hearing in March 2024 and is expected to delve deep into the company’s internal policies, Musk’s leadership, and the broader implications for employee rights and corporate governance. The outcome of this hearing could compel SpaceX to reinstate the fired employees with back pay.
Read more at the New York Times here.
Suit Against Twitter Over Unpaid Bonuses Can Proceed, Judge Rules
More than $5 million in bonuses were orally promised but never paid, according to the suit. A judge denied the company’s motion to dismiss the case.
A federal judge on Friday gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit against the social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, in which workers claim that the company promised but never paid millions of dollars in bonuses.
In June, Mark Schobinger, a former senior director of compensation for Twitter who lives in Texas, sued the company, claiming breach of contract under California law. The company has its headquarters in San Francisco.
Mr. Schobinger said that both before and after the billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter last year, the company had orally promised employees 50 percent of their 2022 targeted bonuses if they stayed with the company in the first quarter of 2023. However, the bonuses were never paid, according to the suit.
Mr. Schobinger filed the suit on his own behalf and on behalf of nearly 2,000 other current and former workers. The amount in dispute is greater than $5 million, according to court records.
In a three-page opinion denying the company’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Mr. Schobinger had “plausibly stated a breach of contract claim” under California law.
Mr. Schobinger maintained that he was covered by the bonus plan and that he had stayed with the company through the final possible payout date.
“Once Schobinger did what Twitter asked, Twitter’s offer to pay him a bonus in return became a binding contract under California law,” the judge wrote. “And by allegedly refusing to pay Schobinger his promised bonus, Twitter violated that contract.”
Lawyers for the company had argued that the performance bonus plan was “not an enforceable contract, because it provides only for a discretionary bonus,” the ruling said.
The judge wrote that Mr. Schobinger was not suing to enforce the discretionary bonus plan but “to enforce Twitter’s alleged subsequent oral promise that employees would, in fact, receive a percentage of the annual bonus contemplated by the plan if they stayed with the company.”
The company argued that an oral promise was not a contract and that Texas law should apply, but the judge found that California law governed the case. But, the judge wrote, “Twitter’s contrary arguments all fail.”
The company could not be reached on Sunday for comment.
In a statement, Mr. Schobinger’s lawyer, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said she was pleased with the judge’s decision.
“The court denied Twitter’s motion to dismiss our claim that Twitter failed to pay promised bonuses to continuing employees,”
Johnny Diaz is a general assignment reporter covering breaking news. He previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel and The Boston Globe. More about Johnny Diaz
‘Oppressors of Right to Free Speech:’ Elon Musk Blasts Major Corporations, Announces Plans to Sue Media Matters
Elon Musk’s X has announced plans to sue leftist nonprofit Media Matters, and has blasted major corporations as “oppressors of your right to free speech” as his social media company battles a new wave of advertiser boycotts.
“This week Media Matters for America posted a story that completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers,” said X/Twitter in a statement refuting Media Matters’ research.
In a tweet in the early hours of Saturday morning, Musk said, “The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
The company accuses Media Matters of manipulating the public and advertisers by curating its timeline to “misinform advertisers about the placement of their posts.”
X alleges that of the 5.5 billion ad impressions served on the platform on the day Media Matters released its report accusing the platform of displaying ads next to “pro-Nazi” content, just 50 total ad impressions were displayed next to the content cherrypicked by the nonprofit.
A number of corporations have joined the latest boycott against X, including Apple, Disney, Sony Pictures, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros, and Lionsgate.
Musk took the boycott as an opportunity to promote X’s new premium $16 subscription service. The $16 tier includes a blue checkmark, ad revenue sharing, access to the Grok AI chatbot, and an ads-free experience.
“Premium+ also has no ads in your timeline,” said Musk. “Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.”
The Media Matters report capitalized on a firestorm of outrage sparked by Musk agreeing with a user’s post that Jewish organizations had supported a “dialectical hatred against whites” that is now being turned on them in the context of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Musk later clarified that the target of his criticism was liberal organizations claiming to represent all Jews, in particular the Anti-Defamation League.
That post Musk concurred with had been made in a response to an ad against antisemitism that featured a white working class father lecturing his son about antisemitic posts online. Many X users took issue with the ad, given that surveys consistently show that minorities are more likely to hold anti-Semitic viewpoints than white people.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
Ted Cruz Busts Elon Musk for Flying Private Jet While Lecturing Trump on Global Warming
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) ripped into Tesla CEO Elon Musk Thursday night for his use of a private jet after the tech billionaire tweeted his disapproval of President Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, took to Twitter to announce that he would be departing from all future presidential councils in protest of President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord. He assured his followers that global warming is real and that leaving the Paris accords is “not good” for America or the world.
Hours later, Cruz mocked Musk’s outrage, pointing out that he regularly travels around the country in his own private jet. If the billionaire CEO was so dedicated to reducing the world’s carbon output, Cruz snarked, he would choose to fly commercial planes rather than private ones.
Musk has come under fire previously for his liberal use of his private jet, which he upgraded last year from a Dassault Falcon 900 B to a Gulfstream G650 ER. It was reported in 2010 that Musk took private jets to Washington on at least 12 occasions over the course of two years to lobby the Department of Energy for a loan of $465 million, which Musk’s company Tesla was eventually granted.
Around the same time, Tesla also struck deals with the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority that made the company exempt from up to $320 million in California State sales and U.S. taxes.
Musk has been a vocal supporter of carbon taxes, saying, “All we are doing [with a carbon tax] is trying to match the inherent subsidy for fossil fuels… on the sustainable energy side. Fossil fuels are already getting a massive subsidy if you believe in global warming. If you don’t then [the subsidy] seems really unfair. If you do then it is like oh we are just trying to correct it.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
No comments:
Post a Comment