The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has accused SpaceX of unlawfully terminating eight employees for criticizing CEO Elon Musk.
According to the complaint issued by the regional director of the NLRB, SpaceX engaged in illegal interrogation, surveillance, and retaliation against the employees, alleging that the firings were the result of an open letter that was circulated in June 2022.
In the letter, the employees condemned Musk’s “inappropriate, disparaging, sexually charged comments on Twitter,” and urged the company to distance itself from his public comments. The employees who wrote and circulated the letter were fired shortly after.
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“At SpaceX the rockets may be reusable but the people who build them are treated as expendable,” Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the terminated employees, wrote in an emailed statement. “I am hopeful these charges will hold SpaceX and its leadership accountable for their long history of mistreating workers and stifling discourse.”
The NLRB has scheduled a trial for March 5, 2024. They have the authority to order reinstatement and back pay but cannot hold executives personally liable or issue punitive damages.
This isn’t the only current accusation of stifling speech against self-titled “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk. Last year, SpaceX settled a case that alleged an employee was fired for protesting a return-to-office mandate.
On Thursday, SpaceX filed a lawsuit against NLRB, alleging that the agency’s structure is unconstitutional. In the suit, the company described the complaint as “unlawful” and claimed that the agency’s structure violates Article 2 of the Constitution and the Fifth and Seventh Amendments because the President can only remove the agency’s board members and administrative judges and not the rest of its employees.
“The existence of unconstitutional removal protections inflicts twofold harm. It limits the President’s constitutional authority, of course,” they wrote. “But it also produces an administrative bureaucracy that operates on regulated parties without the constitutionally required ‘degree of electoral accountability.’”
This response is strange but not out of the ordinary for Musk’s space exploration company. They won an appeal against the Department of Justice in November over alleged hiring discrimination when they claimed that the administrative judges at the Justice Department who hear cases related to anti-immigrant bias were not properly appointed.
Related: SpaceX Faces DOJ Lawsuit Over Alleged Hiring Discrimination
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