News
SpaceX whistleblowers allege widespread sexual harassment
On the heels of a similar report on Blue Origin, five whistleblowers in two different exposes from Lioness and The Verge allege that SpaceX effectively fosters a work environment that is extremely hostile and unresponsive to women.
Above all else, all five former employees describe experiencing sexual harassment, inept responses from human resources (HR), and varying degrees of retaliation after attempting to pursue a fair corporate response. Ashley Kosack, a Rochester Institute of Technology Dean’s List graduate of mechanical engineering and a former SpaceX mission integration engineer and intern with almost four years of experience at the company between January 2017 and November 2021, is at the center of both reports.
First, it’s crucial to note that while several recent Blue Origin exposes alleged rampant sexual harassment and major internal issues that threatened the safety of its projects and of the space tourists that fly on its rockets, none of the whistleblowers attempting to hold SpaceX accountable for its poor treatment of women employees raised concerns about the company’s approach to safety. Nevertheless, Ashley Kosack, Julia CrowleyFarenga, and three other anonymous employees raise allegations that should still be taken seriously.
Above all else, the five describe an environment where women and nonbinary employees are regularly harassed by their male colleagues (ranging from fellow interns and entry-level engineers to managers and senior technicians), whose behavior is then effectively ignored or swept under the rug by SpaceX’s human resources department. In some cases, not only did HR fail to rectify the situation in any way, but they apparently made harassers aware of the allegation and the person alleging harassment. Some were then harassed more and retaliated against, often leading to severe stress and sometimes causing the harassed employees to quit outright.
In two particularly egregious examples, Kosack discovered that SpaceX – an almost two-decade-old company – apparently has no official HR system or mechanism in place to ensure that employees who harass other employees are not only punished accordingly, but at all. It’s difficult to assume anything good about the work culture of a company that explicitly refuses to ensure that sexual harassers face predictable repercussions for their actions. Later, when attempting to take advantage of SpaceX and COO Gwynne Shotwell’s often-advertised “Ethics and Compliance tip line,” Kosack discovered that the tip line wasn’t actually anonymous – making a farce of a tool theoretically meant to make internal whistleblowers feel comfortable enough to speak up.
One source that spoke to Teslarati revealed that that was also the case years ago and has even resulted in at least one employee being fired in retaliation for attempting to raise what they believed were real safety concerns. Shotwell, among others, reportedly receives all content submitted via the tip line. However, SpaceX has achieved an incredible record of success over the last five years, successfully completing more than 100 Falcon launches in a row. SpaceX, with NASA oversight, has also completed five crewed launches since May 2020, successfully launching 18 people in less than a year and half. If there are or were major safety concerns about how SpaceX was building, testing, or flying its Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft, that evidence suggests that the company is able to effectively deal with them.
All five whistleblowers still agreed that SpaceX is managing those feats despite consistently treating its workforce like an expendable resource – especially in the case of nonbinary and women employees. Even for men at SpaceX, it’s incredibly rare for employees to last more than five years – which, at least a few years ago, happens to be when accrued equity vests. As long as that remains the case and as long as employees feel like they’re hopeless in the face of egregious harassment, it’s hard to imagine that those retention issues will ever change or that SpaceX’s poor workforce diversity will ever significantly improve.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
