Disha Mitra
Elon Musk reacts to meme on SpaceX firing 5 employees over critical letter.
Source: The Geek Games
SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk took to Twitter to a react to a meme on SpaceX firing five employees posted by a user this week. Specifically, he tweeted with a ‘laughing with tears’ emoji, along with a thumbs up emoji and ‘100’ emoji as a reaction to the meme.
Clearly, the billionaire CEO had a rather humorous reaction to the user’s meme on SpaceX firing employees for criticising him in a letter circulated among them. The employees of the company drafted a letter to the executives of the company, and shared on their internal channel on Microsoft Teams this week.
President of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell specified in an email how the company ‘terminated a number of employees’ connected to the drafted letter following an investigation. She cited the reason that the sacked employees made others feel ‘uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied’ owing to the pressure the letter imposed on them to sign something that did not necessarily ‘reflect their views.’
It is not clear as to which of the five employees were particularly fired, for more than a 1000 employees were somewhat involved in either drafting, circulating or reacting to the letter on the Teams channel.
The tweet from Musk:
🤣👍💯
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2022
💯
By u/Benjideaula | Reddit pic.twitter.com/EfQ9I78Rdb
— Eva Fox 🦊🇺🇦 Shadow Crew (@EvaFoxU) June 17, 2022
The meme posted by user Eva Fox depicts an animated figure riding a bicycle in a lane. Subsequently, the figure is seen to lose his balance and fall along with the bicycle, seemingly writhing in pain. The meme shows the five SpaceX employees as the figure, ‘losing its balance’ by writing a letter that is rather ‘unprofessionally worded,’ causing distress to coworkers. As the ‘figure’ loses balance, it cries ‘Why is Elon against free speech?’
As we know. Musk is in the middle of a $44 billion deal to acquire social media platform Twitter. Essentially, he aims to establish freer controls on right to freedom of speech. The billionaire CEO has been an active user of the social media site for a while now, expressing his thoughts and opinions rather unapologetically. Once the Twitter deal goes through, he hopes to set up a platform with fewer controls on speech, giving users a fair speech to speak their mind.
Hence, it is rather clear that the SpaceX CEO is pioneer of free speech. The meme, on the other hand, indicates that the fired employees are wondering ‘why Elon is against free speech?’ In the letter, the employees expressed their opinion on how Musk ruining the company’s reputation, listing a range of demands separating SpaceX from his ‘personal brand.’