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Elon Musk

Elon Musk409 posts

Elon Musk is a South-African born Canadian-American engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur, born in 1971. He was a co-founder of PayPal, which was sold to Ebay for $1.5 billion. He then founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Tesla Motors. He is chief executive and chief designer at SpaceX and CEO and head of product design at Tesla and chairman of Solar City. Musk purchased Twitter in September 2022.

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17 Nov, 2022

Fired SpaceX employees file charges

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Eight former SpaceX employees file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging they were let go for being part of a group that had drafted and circulated a letter to SpaceX executives in June. The letter asked SpaceX executives for three things: to curb “Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” to define and enforce the company’s sexual harassment policies, and ensure that all leadership is held accountable for violating such policies.

SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated ‘No Asshole’ and ‘Zero Tolerance’ policies.

US labor law prohibits employers from firing workers who band together to advocate for better working conditions. At the time, Musk called the letter a “distraction and embarrassment” to the company.

1 May, 2023

Conservationists sue FAA over SpaceX launches

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Conservation groups sue the Federal Aviation Administration for approving expanded rocket launch operations by SpaceX without an environmental impact study (EIS), an extensive study that includes public review and can take years or decades to complete. The FAA approved the launches based on a far less thorough assessment and a finding that SpaceX activities at Boca Chica pose “no significant impact” on the environment.

The federal court lawsuit is filed in the District of Columbia by the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV (Rio Grand Valley), and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation. It says that explosion was only the latest in a series of at least nine that have occurred at Boca Chica in recent years and that the mishaps are disrupting a haven for protected wildlife and vital habitat for migratory birds. The plaintiffs are asking the court to vacate the finding of no significant impact and require a full EIS before any more launches occur.

This case concerns whether the nation’s commitment to preserving our critical wildlife habitat and treasured coastal landscapes must be sacrificed as we reach out to explore the cosmos.

15 Jun, 2023

Music publishers sue Twitter for $250m, citing Musk’s lax copyright stance

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The National Music Publishers’ Association sues Twitter, on behalf of firms including Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Universal Music Publishing Group, in a US federal court in Tennessee, for more than $250m over bulk copyright infringement, citing Elon Musk’s tweets to argue that the company has deliberately stopped enforcing the rules. The suit says Twitter has not paid for a blanket licence allowing its users to upload copyrighted material, unlike TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat. in 2023, The New York Times reported that talks had stalled over the $100m price tag and fallen apart since Musk bought the site. The suit names 17000 songs as having been infringed:

Twitter’s policies demonstrate that Twitter views itself, not the law, as the arbiter of what content is permitted on the Twitter platform. Despite claiming to take down tweets in response to an infringement notice within hours or minutes, Twitter routinely waits much longer before acting, if it acts at all. There are thousands of instances where Twitter waited 30 days or more to remove or disable access to the content identified.

According to the suit, Musk said copyright “goes absurdly far beyond protecting the original creator” and “overzealous” application of copyright laws “is a plague on humanity”. The plaintiffs:

This statement and others like it exert pressure on Twitter employees, including those in its trust and safety team, on issues relating to copyright and infringement

5 Jul, 2023

Musk sues lawyers who represented Twitter against him

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Arguing that the bill is too high, Musk sues the lawyers who represented Twitter (now “X Corp”) in its suit against him for trying to abandon his $44 billion takeover offer in 2022. (Filed in the Superior Court of California, the case is X Corp. v. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz [CGC-23-607461].) Hoping to get back part of the $90 million Twitter paid Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (WLRK), X Corp alleges that the law firm tried to “fundamentally alter its fee arrangement” toward the end of its representation of Twitter in order to get an “improper bonus payment in violation of its fiduciary and ethical obligations to its client.” The complaint says that the board had been surprised about the fees and alleges that the firm was “at the center of a spending spree” by Twitter’s departing executives. It says those executives:

ran up the tab at Twitter by, among other things, facilitating the improper payment of substantial gifts to preferred law firms like Wachtell on top of the firms’ full hourly billings by designating tens of millions of dollars in handouts to the firms as ‘success’ or ‘project’ fees.

24 Aug, 2023

DOJ sues SpaceX for hiring discrimination

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The U.S. Department of Justice sues SpaceX for discriminatory hiring practices, accusing the company of discouraging asylum seekers from applying to open positions and refusing to hire those who did. The complaint says SpaceX’s “routine, widespread, and longstanding” hiring practices “harmed asylees and refugees,” alleging that its job postings wrongly stated that only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents could apply. (Exactly which positions those were is unclear, but U.S. law protects asylees and refugees from hiring discrimination in general, regardless of their citizenship status.) After the investigation began, Musk tweeted:

US law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are considered advanced weapons technology.

The DOJ says Musk was incorrect, however, and the tweet is being used as evidence in the suit.

2 Sep, 2023

Musk accused of ‘hijacking’ £5.5bn satellite deal

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In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), SpaceX demands the Commission “expeditiously review and rescind” a decision to green light a £5.5 billion merger between American company Viasat and Britain’s Inmarsat. SpaceX, which had unsuccesfully tried to block the takeover, claims Viasat is causing interference with its satellites and breaching its licensing conditions in a long-running row between the two companies. It says the regulator has “improperly” failed to consider its claims the first time and that the acquisition was “contrary to the public interest” because of Viasat’s “blatant disregard” for regulations. Viasat says the FCC had already found it “qualified to obtain licences” and that its rival’s latest assault was an attempt to “hijack” the takeover. It also accuses Musk of creating the risk of orbital collisions by launching thousands of small satellites.

These are old arguments that have been tried and failed before – the FCC expressly rejected them in clearing the acquisition. And they will certainly fail again. Our focus is on integrating Inmarsat’s assets and capabilities into the Viasat family to offer the innovative new services our customers want.