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SpaceX President explains termination of employees behind open letter criticizing Elon Musk’s tweets
Recently, news broke that some SpaceX employees have written an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk’s behavior on Twitter. The employees have been terminated by the private space firm, with SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell explaining the rationale behind the company’s decision.
The open letter argued that SpaceX is not living up its “No Asshole” and zero-tolerance sexual harassment policies due to Elon Musk’s behavior. The open letter demanded that SpaceX should “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” among others. “Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter read.
In her letter to SpaceX employees, Shotwell clarified that the people behind the open letter had been terminated. She noted that SpaceX had received complaints from several employees who complained about the open letter because the initiative made them feel “uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views.”
Shotwell also highlighted that the letter interfered with workers’ ability to focus on their work, especially amidst SpaceX’s busy schedule. “We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism — our current leadership team is more dedicated to ensuring we have a great and ever-improving work environment than any I have seen in my 35-years career,” she wrote.
Following is Shotwell’s letter to SpaceX employees about the matter:
You may have received an unsolicited request from a small group of SpaceX employees for your signature on an “open letter” yesterday and your participation in a related survey. Based on diverse employee feedback, this has upset many. That is, the letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views.
Employees also complained that it interfered with their ability to focus on and do their work. We have 3 launches within 37 hours for critical satellites this weekend, we have to support the astronauts we delivered to the ISS and get cargo Dragon back to the flight-ready, and after receiving environmental approval early this week, we are on the cusp of the first orbital launch attempt of Starship. We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism — our current leadership team is more dedicated to ensuring we have a great and ever-improving work environment than any I have seen in my 35-years career.
We solicit and expect our employees to report all concerns to their leadership, senior management, HR, or Legal. But blanketing thousands of people across the company with repeated unsolicited emails and asking them to sign letters and fill out unsponsored surveys during the work day is unacceptable, goes against our documented handbook policy, and does not show the strong judgement needed to work in this very challenging space transportation sector. We performed an investigation and have terminated a number of employees involved.
I am sorry for this distraction. Please stay focused on the SpaceX mission, and use your time at work to do your best work. This is how we will get to Mars.
The open letter of SpaceX employees about Elon Musk’s behavior can be viewed below.
An open letter to the Executives of SpaceX,
In light of recent allegations against our CEO and his public disparagement of the situation, we would like to deliver feedback on how these events affect our company’s reputation, and through it, our mission. Employees across the spectra of gender, ethnicity, seniority, and technical roles have collaborated on this letter. We feel it is imperative to maintain honest and open dialogue with each other to effectively reach our company’s primary goals together: making SpaceX a great place to work for all, and making humans a multiplanetary species.
As SpaceX employees we are expected to challenge established processes, rapidly innovate to solve complex problems as a team, and use failures as learning opportunities. Commitment to these ideals is fundamental to our identity and is core to how we have redefined our industry. But for all our technical achievements, SpaceX fails to apply these principles to the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion with equal priority across the company, resulting in a workplace culture that remains firmly rooted in the status quo.
Individuals and groups of employees at SpaceX have spent significant effort beyond their technical scope to make the company a more inclusive space via conference recruiting, open forums, feedback to leadership, outreach, and more. However, we feel an unequal burden to carry this effort as the company has not applied appropriate urgency and resources to the problem in a manner consistent with our approach to critical path technical projects. To be clear: recent events are not isolated incidents; they are emblematic of a wider culture that underserves many of the people who enable SpaceX’s extraordinary accomplishments. As industry leaders, we bear unique responsibility to address this.
Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks. As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX—every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company. It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.
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. This must change. As a starting point, we are putting forth the following categories of action items, the specifics of which we would like to discuss in person with the executive team within a month:
Publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior. SpaceX must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand.
Hold all leadership equally accountable to making SpaceX a great place to work for everyone. Apply a critical eye to issues that prevent employees from fully performing their jobs and meeting their potential, pursuing specific and enduring actions that are well resourced, transparent, and treated with the same rigor and urgency as establishing flight rationale after a hardware anomaly.
Define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior. Clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s “no-asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies and enforce them consistently. SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day.
We care deeply about SpaceX’s mission to make humanity multiplanetary. But more importantly, we care about each other. The collaboration we need to make life multiplanetary is incompatible with a culture that treats employees as consumable resources. Our unique position requires us to consider how our actions today will shape the experiences of individuals beyond our planet. Is the culture we are fostering now the one which we aim to bring to Mars and beyond?
We have made strides in that direction, but there is so much more to accomplish.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time
SpaceX caught Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday.
SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday, bringing Ship 42 back to Starbase after roughly 22 and a half hours in orbit on Flight 15. No company has ever returned the upper stage of an orbital rocket to its launch site and caught it.
Ship 42 lifted off Friday evening on top of Booster 22, reached orbit and deployed all 26 of its Starlink V3 satellites. Three of those satellites carried cameras to photograph the ship’s heat shield, and SpaceX said the imagery showed it was in good shape for reentry, allowing controllers to pass on a backup splashdown option overnight. By Saturday morning, SpaceX posted on X that “Pad and tower systems are go for catch.” After about 14 orbits, the ship fired its engines to leave orbit, came back through the atmosphere and was caught by the tower’s chopstick arms.
IT HAPPENED https://t.co/KHITqHUWOf — TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 14, 2026
The catch salvages a flight that started with a setback. Super Heavy did not make it back to the tower on Friday. “We were initially go for a catch, but in the later stages of the coast, the booster aborted itself for a GNC issue that it detected and that put it into its landing offshore,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said. The booster hovered over the Gulf of Mexico before its flight termination system triggered and it came down in the water.
Elon Musk said Saturday that the booster ran short on propellant because its engines slightly underperformed. The fix, he wrote, is better engine consistency with Raptor V3.2 and a flight software change to cut the engines “about one second earlier” so enough fuel is left for the return. “This booster loss does not change our timeline to reach high volume, fully reusable Starship flights,” Musk added.
The ship is the harder half of that goal, and the one SpaceX had never recovered. Super Heavy has now been caught three times, most recently in March 2025, while every previous ship ended in the ocean or was lost. Falcon 9 lands its boosters routinely but throws its upper stage away on every launch. Musk described a full Starship recovery on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call as a “profound technology milestone,” and Saturday’s catch shows the hardest piece of it can work.
That piece matters for nearly everything SpaceX is planning. Reusable ships are what make the economics of launching Starlink V3 satellites at scale work, along with the Starmind orbital compute constellation. NASA’s Artemis lunar lander also depends on refilling Starships in orbit with repeated tanker flights, which requires vehicles that can fly again quickly. Musk has said he expects Starship to reach a weekly launch cadence in the first half of 2027.
Flight 15 also improved on the last Starship mission in September, which reached orbit but ended after about three hours with a Pacific splashdown when some engines shut down. Before this flight, SpaceX had shown an animation of the ship catch during its earnings webcast, and Musk put the odds of pulling it off on the first try at “more likely than not,” as Teslarati reported.
Tesla’s long-promised Cybercab is finally available for personal purchase, at least for a select few in the Austin area. But it’s far from a straightforward ownership experience.
The $29,990 price tag comes with a stack of restrictions that redefine what “owning” the vehicle actually means. The two-seat, steering-wheel-free Robotaxi, previously limited to Tesla’s own fleet, now carries contractual terms that limit where it can go, how it can be used, and whether it can even move without an active paid subscription.
Opening Night of Orders
Late on November 13, Tesla announced that select customers were being invited to order a Cybercab for personal use.
Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries
The estimated purchase price is $29,990 before taxes, paired with a non-refundable $1,000 deposit and an estimated December 2026 delivery in Austin, Texas. The first month of the required :Autonomy Subscription,” priced at $299 per month is included.
After that, the vehicle needs an active subscription to operate at all. The announcement confirmed that customer sales had begun, albeit on an invite-only basis rather than a public order page.
The Fine Print for Buyers
BREAKING: Tesla’s Cybercab Autonomy Subscription terms are now live. A paid monthly subscription is required.
1/12 Tesla: “Your Cybercab will not operate without an active Autonomy Subscription. 🧵 https://t.co/umVk6DJE2x— Spencer (@scotsrule08) November 13, 2026
For those invited to order, the agreements (Cybercab Order Agreement, Terms of Use, and Autonomy Subscription Agreement) impose significant constraints. Major points include:
- A mandatory Autonomy Subscription (currently listed at $299 per month on the order screen, first month included) is required; without it, the Cybercab will not operate.
- Personal, non-commercial use only; ride-hailing, Robotaxi network participation, delivery, or rental requires separate written authorization or product enablement from Tesla.
- Operation restricted to Tesla-enabled Robotaxi geofences and supported service areas, which the company can expand, shrink, or alter; the vehicle may be technologically prevented from operating outside them.
- No unauthorized modifications (including wraps, window tint, or wheel changes) without Tesla or an authorized provider.
- Restricted resale and transfer: written permission required, with contractual damages of at least $50,000 (or full transaction value if higher) for unauthorized sales; Tesla also reserves repurchase rights at a company-determined fair market value, with the owner covering return costs.
- Safety or improper-use “strikeouts” (three or more) can trigger a one-week suspension of autonomous features without prorated refund.
- Owners remain responsible for insurance, registration, charging, parking, and general cleaning; the subscription covers certain maintenance items such as tires, windshields, filters, and camera cleaning, plus limited towing.
- Manual controls on the touchscreen allow only short-distance movement up to about 2 mph and require a valid driver’s license; they are not for public-road driving.
Why These Terms Might Exist
Tesla’s approach prioritizes control over a vehicle designed without traditional human controls and intended primarily as transport-as-a-service, something that Musk has hinted toward for some time now. Restricting commercial use and modifications could be as much of a software integrity, safety, and data collection effort as it is a safety effort.
Fleet consistency could also be in regulatory scrutiny early on in the Cybercab’s days of public operation.
The subscription model generates ongoing revenue beyond the low vehicle price and ensures the car remains connected and updatable, something that will keep the Cybercab as safe as possible as new updates roll out.
Buyback and resale limits reduce the risk of vehicles circulating outside Tesla’s operational and service ecosystem.
It apperas that personal ownership is secondary to the broader Robotaxi network strategy, as Musk has previously stated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned.
Pickup Locations and Musk’s Pricing View
Initial deliveries are estimated for Austin, but personal vehicles are able to operate in any of Tesla’s Robotaxi geofences:
It’ll work unsupervised inside all the same geo locations as @robotaxi, just serving the owners’ needs.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) November 14, 2026
Those who have been invited to order can also have their personal Cybercab delivered to numerous locations in Texas, including:
- Austin
- Dallas
- Houston
- San Antonio
- Fort Worth
Interesting that you can choose a delivery city https://t.co/SknDz9rFzo
— Whole Mars Catalog (@wholemars) November 14, 2026
As far as the monthly “Autonomy Subscription,” it appears Musk already wants it to be low. He acknowledged last night on X that the subscription price is too high. Along with detailing that the Cybercab will be available nationwide as regulatory approval is received, Musk said the monthly fee should match the cost of FSD and Premium Connectivity, which is about $115 per month.
The launch marks a milestone for unsupervised personal autonomous vehicles, but the fine print makes clear that buyers are purchasing a highly constrained asset whose usefulness is tightly bound to Tesla’s software, service network, and geographic approvals.
Tesla has officially put the Cybercab up for sale, revealing a bargain price and a $299 per month “Autonomy Subscription” that could hit customer hands as soon as December.
The offer requires a $299 monthly Autonomy Subscription, with the first month included in the purchase price, along with a $1,000 non-refundable order deposit. Tesla’s ordering interface shows deliveries targeted for Austin, Texas.
Tesla says that the Cybercab is making transportation more efficient, affordable and accessible than ever before, and that buyers can order their own Cybercab for personal use.
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: Tesla Cybercab is officially on sale for $29,990 with a $299/mo “Autonomy Subscription”
Delivery slotted for December! HUGE!
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated robotaxi, a gold-finished, two-passenger vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, designed from the outset for unsupervised autonomous operation. It has been in limited Robotaxi service in Austin since September 2026, operating alongside Tesla’s larger fleet of Model Y vehicles.
Production takes place at Gigafactory Texas, which launched earlier this year. Tesla has stated for some time that it planned to put Cybercabs on sale by the end of the year, and it looks like they will come through on that promise if everything goes according to plan.
The Autonomy Subscription is mandatory for the vehicle to operate because it is void of a steering wheel and pedals. Tesla notes that the subscription and regular vehicle maintenance are required, indicating that personal owners will depend on the company’s software and service infrastructure rather than traditional ownership models.
One month of the subscription is included with purchase and subsequent months are billed separately until canceled.
This limited personal-sales opening marks a shift from Tesla’s earlier emphasis on fleet and transport-as-a-service operations. During the Q3 2026 Earnings Call, executives indicated that the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain Tesla-owned and used for rideshare service, while still aiming to place some vehicles with customers by year-end.
Elon Musk has previously targeted a price below $30,000, which was a huge point of emphasis for the Cybercab being the central point of Tesla’s “transportation-as-a-service” model.
Availability remains restricted to invited customers rather than a public order page, and the initial deliveries are expected only in the Austin area where unsupervised Robotaxi operations are already active. Buyers will need to accept the geographic and operational constraints of current autonomous deployment, as the vehicle cannot be driven manually outside supported zones.
The move gives a small number of early buyers the chance to own Tesla’s dedicated autonomous vehicle at the long-discussed sub-$30,000 price point, while the bulk of production continues to support the company’s expanding Robotaxi network.
SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time
Tesla Cybercab ownership will come with plenty of strings attached
