Yes, and they hate it…… but even his idiocy can’t hinder their love of innovation. I tend to think of it as a Werner Von Braun situation, take the $ to try and better the world no matter who’s handing it out. While it’s morally questionable, I can’t argue with that attitude.
Source: two personal liberal acquaintances who are engineers for the company lol.
Also, even teslas engineers hate the cyber truck and apparently it’s the only project Elon demanded he be in on the engineering/design and completely wrote off every issue they brought up
A friend of mine's daughter is a MIT graduate rocket scientist and interviewed with SpaceX. She declined the offer to work there. She said the working conditions were awful and everyone she met was miserable. She stayed at JPL. .
Did it make Einstein or Von Braun nazi’s? Did Oppenheimers politics make him either a capitalist or communist? Did it make Mercedes or Hugo Boss Nazis? Or IBM, the Bayer company, etc (Idk about those Mercedes or Hugo Boss honestly, just throwing out ideas of major people/companies with shady ties in the past)
It's my belief that no matter the cause, if you work under a nazi, you're a nazi. Do people just get a pass or something? And who decides who gets a pass?
The problem with that is, generally…… those shitty people have the most $ and influence. Even the Nazis, imperialist Japan, the USSR, the USA at its worst made ENORMOUS advances for the people of the earth. I mean, without Von Braun space travel would STILL be an issue most likely, without Bayer we wouldn’t have half of the medicines we have, and so on and so forth.
You could even go back centuries, without the Roman’s we wouldn’t have anywhere NEAR the infrastructure or advanced western societies at the level they’re at now, and we ALL know how good the Roman Emperors were
I’m of the belief you can’t judge one person on the actions of a company or their CEO.
Von Braun famously defected as soon as he realized his long range rockets would work KNOWING it would give Hitler the advantage and then the tide even further towards Nazi domination in the war. Idk about his second in command
Even though he defected so that the Nazis DIDNT get said rockets?
The Nazis used forced labor for essentially EVERYTHING, so blaming one man for the use of said forced labor to advance humanity is kind of an ignorant take IMHO when they openly left said regime when it was apparent their work would advance said horrible cause.
If you work for a company that has ideals that contradict your own, then you must not have much of an issue with those ideals. People have the choice of whether or not to work for a company they don't align with. And don't give me the "they need to make a living" bullshit. If they so strongly opposed the ideals that Musk and Tesla stand for, they wouldn't work there.
As a former Tesla employee who would categorize myself as fairly liberal, yes. A very large number of them in fact. There aren't many companies where you get to work on projects that are truly innovative, and the people there are very passionate about the work they do.
When someone says "Tesla" or "SpaceX", people hear "Elon", which is the unfortunate part. Some of the most brilliant minds I've ever worked with in my life are at those companies and are genuinely passionate about the work they do. These companies are more than just Elon Musk.
When Elon stops using the wealth and platform these companies have given him to influence national and global politics, I'll change how I view these companies.
I really like my wife's 2020 model y and, when we were replacing my old truck, I wanted to get another Tesla.
But with the total about face Elon has openly pulled since we bought my wife's car, I will never give Tesla another dollar as long as it will benefit Elon.
Yeah, while I personally would never work for SpaceX considering what I've heard from friends about the working conditions and expectations, they are one of the few companies you can work for right now as an Aerospace Engineer that is actually forwarding space travel and a lot of people will put up with a lot of BS to work on what theyre passionate about. (The same goes for Blue Origin too)
If Elon has any talent it's getting talented people to sign on his vision, he's a POS but Im sure every engineer that worked on this had the best time ever.
If a job pays well, why would anyone quit just because the CEO has different political views? Is that actually a thing in America? Do people really walk away from a good job over stuff like that?
Idiots do. I work for a really shitty chemical processing company, and I’m SURE (without proof) they’re on some shady political BS since the current regime rolled back environmental regulations, but they treat their decently and actually listen to us. For example, since inflation has went through the roof they’ve give SUBSTANTIAL (for me, personally almost 20% of my annual salary) raises to compensate for the extreme rise in cost of living, got us better insurance and are now offering financial planning, child care stipends for overnight workers, etc
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u/Gorillasofgallifrey 7h ago
Do liberals still work in his companies? I would have thought a lot of them would have quit. (Not saying this to defend Elon. He sucks).