Employees who helped organise the letter reportedly lost their jobs.
Weeks later, four more employees were let go.
Elon Musk and the Civil Rights Department are at odds right now.

Several former SpaceX workers have filed a complaint alleging that the firm broke labour rules after they were let go after publishing an open letter criticising CEO Elon Musk's conduct.

The complaint, which was submitted to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, describes what allegedly transpired inside SpaceX after staff members distributed a letter in June, which, among other things, urged executives to denounce Musk's social media antics, including downplaying claims that he had harassed a flight attendant, and hold everyone accountable for improper behaviour.

The letter was written a few weeks after news broke that Musk had paid a flight attendant $250,000 (about Rs. 2,04,27,920) to settle a prospective sexual harassment claim against him. The multibillionaire has refuted the charges.

Employees encouraged SpaceX to commit to a transparent procedure for handling reports of misconduct and to consistently enforce its policy against inappropriate behaviour in their letter to the company. A day after being fired, Paige Holland-Thielen and the other four employees who helped organise the letter filed a grievance with a local NLRB office in California.

Weeks later, four additional employees were fired for their involvement in the letter. Musk, the current CEO of Twitter and the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, wants to do things his own way, even if that means breaking laws and regulations.

He is currently engaged in a fierce battle with the California regulator Civil Rights Department, which is suing Tesla for widespread racial discrimination. Several engineers also claimed on Twitter that they had been let go last week as a result of publicly criticising Musk on Twitter or on an internal message board for Twitter staff.

As a female engineer at SpaceX, Holland-Thielen claimed in a statement that she had 'deep cultural obstacles.' She also offered consolation to coworkers who had encountered similar difficulties.

It was evident that this culture was developed from the very top, she remarked. She acknowledged that anyone may bring issues to the attention of the leadership and that this was part of what she enjoyed about the business.

According to Holland-Thielen, 'We produced the letter to connect with the executive staff on their terms and demonstrate how their inaction caused concrete obstacles to the mission's long-term success.' We had no idea we would be let go by SpaceX for attempting to advance the business.