Elon Musk appears in the news nearly every day, often for his behavior as the owner of Twitter or his behavior as a user of Twitter, and the news is typically troubling. Calling for the prosecution of a lifelong medical profession as a form of harassment. Coordinating with gonzo "journalist" Matt Taibi to essentially dox prior Twitter executives for (gasp) fielding complaints about questionable posts of politicians and public figures regarding COVID as an issue of government censorship instead of a corporation managing its own platform as it is legally entitled to do. Directing a halt to paying basic expense obligations like rent at Twitter. Directing a review of payments of legally required severance payments to laid off employees. Volunteering his own "peace plan" for Ukraine -- involving Ukraine ceding territory invaded by Russia to Russia in exchange for not getting bombed.
It's a free country. Musk owns Twitter outright as a privately held company. He can communicate anything he wants on his global bullhorn without prior restraint. He can de-platform anyone he wants and they can find another technology to spread their ideas (good or bad). He can overpay billions for a firm then micromanage its accounts payable ledger and screw over whichever creditors he chooses.
However, Musk is not free from exposure to the consequences of those actions. Nor are his other companies, which include SpaceX. And he isn't the only party to his actions with choices. And that is where things get concerning.
SpaceX has contracts with the US government worth billions for
- five flights of US crews to the International Space Station ($1.4 billion)
- ongoing cargo deliveries (unmanned) to the International Space Station
- confidential launches for the Department of Defense ($297 million)
- construction of a lunar lander ($2.9 billion)
In light of events between Russia and Ukraine and an unwillingness to provide cashflow to Russia by using their Soyuz rockets, European nations have also increased their dependency upon SpaceX for commercial and military purposes.
If Musk continues driving away staff at Twitter, who cares? The next "feature" is delayed? It takes an extra ten hours to restore service after a software bug or hacking event? NO ONE should be relying on Twitter for emergency communications (though some communities have adopted it as a tool for weather alerts and civil defense...). Corporations should not be relying on Twitter for internal communication or public relations with investors, media and the public. It has already been hacked to spread bogus financial news tanking share prices of billion dollar firms.
If Musk begins driving away engineering and manufacturing staff at Tesla or The Boring Company because of his public conduct, who cares? Self-driving cars slip off into the future another five years? The expected Cybertruck slips from 2023 into 2025? A tunnel doesn't get dug? Customers have multiple viable alternatives in the marketplace to consider. Some communities considering The Boring Company for tunnel projects are finding TBC's costs skyrocketing before the first shovel or finding TBC "ghosting" them during negotiations, indicating a lack of confidence in delivery capabilities likely to trigger cancellations.
In contrast, if engineering, manufacturing and operations personnel at SpaceX begin leaving as reaction to his conduct, the US government faces immediate human safety issues for crewed missions and likely national security issues for the top-secret launches likely related to spy satellite launches and test flights of upcoming technologies.
Famed astronaut John Glenn had a famous quote related to his answer to a question he heard countless times -- what were you thinking as you sat waiting for launch? His answer was supposedly "I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract."
Fast forward to the present in 2022. How would you like to be an astronaut sitting on a launch pad or already in flight or sitting in a space station knowing that your safe return might depend on:
- a engineer on the ground being available to troubleshoot an equipment issue on your craft?
- the availability of a part in short supply because SpaceX manufacturing is short on machinists or assembly personnel?
- expertise from a sub-contractor currently in some payment battle with SpaceX stemming from a random fit of pique by Elon Musk?
How are people in the Department of Defense feeling about our ability to keep spy satellites up as old ones need replacing so we aren't missing critical intelligence about Russia, North Korea, China or Iran? SpaceX has proven, state of the art rocket technology but that expertise cannot be retained if the culture of the firm and the behavior of its leadership is viewed as toxic to a wide swath of current employees. Even if current employees are willing to tolerate it, will the company be able to attract additional employees from the outside to keep pace with higher delivery tempos?
American leadership in the Biden Administration and Congress needs to take a serious look at supplier diversity in its military and intelligence programs. Given Musk's behavior in the management of Twitter, relying upon contracts alone to assure performance does not seem wise. Too many eggs have been placed in the SpaceX basket, given that the lead egg in that basket is -- by all normal benchmarks of behavior and professionalism -- obviously cracked.
WTH
