SpaceX whistleblowers allege widespread sexual harassment

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In the wake of a similar report on Blue Origin, five whistleblowers in two different presentations by Lioness and The Verge allege that SpaceX effectively fosters a work environment that is extremely hostile and insensitive to women.

Above all, the five former employees describe experiencing sexual harassment, inane responses from human resources (HR) and varying degrees of retaliation after attempting to seek a fair response from the company. Ashley Kosack, a mechanical engineering graduate from the Rochester Institute of Technology Dean’s List and a former engineer and SpaceX mission integration intern with nearly four years of experience in the company between January 2017 and November 2021, is at the center of the two reports. .

Over the weekend, Gwynne Shotwell emailed employees ahead of the essay’s release reminding people of SpaceX’s no-hole policy and that the company would be doing an internal and third-party audit of its HR practices. : “We also know that we can always do better.”

– Loren Grush (@lorengrush) December 14, 2021

First of all, it’s crucial to note that while several recent Blue Origins expose allegations of rampant sexual harassment and major internal issues that threatened the safety of its projects and of the space tourists who fly aboard its rockets, none of the whistleblowers Attempting to hold SpaceX accountable for its mistreatment of female employees has raised concerns about the company’s approach to security. Nonetheless, Ashley Kosack, Julia CrowleyFarenga and three other anonymous employees are raising allegations that must always be taken seriously.

Above all, the five describe an environment where women and non-binary employees are regularly harassed by their male colleagues (ranging from fellow interns and junior engineers to managers and senior technicians), whose behavior is then effectively ignored or brushed under the rug. by SpaceX’s Human Resources Department. In some cases, HR not only failed to rectify the situation in any way, but apparently informed the harassers of the allegation and the person alleging the harassment. Some were subsequently harassed further and suffered retaliation, often causing significant stress and sometimes causing the harassed employees to quit outright.

In two particularly egregious examples, Kosack found that SpaceX – a nearly two-decade-old company – apparently had no formal HR system or mechanism in place to ensure that employees who harass other employees were not only punished by consequence, but not at all. It’s hard to assume anything good about the work culture of a company that explicitly refuses to ensure that sexual harassers suffer predictable repercussions for their actions. Later, in trying to leverage the oft-advertised “ethics and compliance advice line” from SpaceX and COO Gwynne Shotwell – found out that the advice line was not actually anonymous – pranking a tool theoretically meant to make inside whistleblowers feel comfortable speaking up.

A source who spoke to Teslarati revealed that this was also the case years ago and that at least one employee was even fired in retaliation for trying to raise what he believed to be genuine safety concerns. . Shotwell, among others, reportedly received all content submitted through the advice line. However, SpaceX has achieved an incredible record of success over the past five years, successfully completing more than 100 Falcon launches in a row. SpaceX, under NASA supervision, also launched 18 people in five crewed launches completed in just a year and a half – all successful. If there are or were any major safety concerns over the way SpaceX built, tested, or flew its Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft, this evidence suggests that the company has effectively addressed them.

All five whistleblowers agree that SpaceX is handling these exploits despite the fact that it systematically treats its workforce as a expendable resource, especially in the case of non-binary employees and women. Even for the men of SpaceX, it’s incredibly rare for employees to last longer than five years – which, at least a few years ago, just happens to be when equity builds up. As long as this remains the case, and as long as employees feel desperate in the face of blatant harassment, it’s hard to imagine that these retention issues will ever change or that the low diversity of SpaceX’s workforce will grow. will improve significantly.

SpaceX whistleblowers allege widespread sexual harassment

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