SpaceX fires at least five employees who wrote an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk, calling him a "distraction." Cheddar News breaks down the latest in the situation. 

Closing Bell

SpaceX Fires at Least Five for Speaking Against Musk 

back to cheddar news is closing bell. Everyone, I'm asia Celestino along with Michele Castelli Oh, an update to a story we brought you yesterday, A group of SpaceX employees penned a scathing letter to their ceo Elon musk in an internal memo sent to executives, the group called the billionaire quote distraction and embarrassment. The employees did not cite specific incidents but said over recent weeks must behavior has increasingly caught their attention. Well, SpaceX disapproved of the open letter and swiftly fired the workers who wrote and shared the piece according to an email sent by the SpaceX president and seen by the verge. At least five employees were let go because of it. The president writing, quote, the letter made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied and or angry because the letter pressured them to sign on to something that did not reflect their views At the end of the email it reads, quote, please stay focused on the Space X mission and use your time at work to do your best work. This is how we will get to mars it is unclear how many employees signed a letter against musk. There are an estimated 12,000 employees at Space X. This is crazy retaliation for someone who is actually just voicing some concerns over their employers. Look, I feel like there is a free country, you should be able to voice concerns but getting fired for raising concerns is kind of a little disturbing. It's also really ironic, Michelle because you and I were just talking about Elon musk addressing the twitter workforce and saying that he supports free speech on the platform, even in some situations potentially allowing a lot of users who have created harmful environments with their speech and their tweets. So I think it's incredibly ironic. I think it's also interesting that this open letter is coming at a time I completely missed this. I don't know if you saw this last month, a sexual harassment report came out against Ellen alleging he exposed himself to a flight attendant of SpaceX's corporate jet fleet, among other inappropriate behaviors. This happened back in 2016. Uh, so I would say of course it's been a tumultuous year when it comes to having Elon musk as your boss. He's been very public on twitter, Kind of the mayor of twitter now looking to acquire the company. He's made appearances on SNL, he's made comments about crypto, but I think this is kind of the straw that's breaking the camel's back that employees maybe were alluding to when it comes to a toxic work environment