Ask HN: Employees of Tesla and SpaceX, how do you feel after the inauguration? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Employees of Tesla and SpaceX, how do you feel after the inauguration?

21 pointsjosefresco16 comments

Speculation (I've never been employed by either, nor X, nor ...) -

Those employees have known for years (or decades) that Elon is a loose cannon with a big ego. Their priorities and ideologies are not close matches to what is generally PC to profess on HN, and they don't view Elon as a deal-breaker.

And they see very little upside to commenting here.

Yes of course they probably know about his big ego, but that's quite a bit different from being openly fascist. Today (or yesterday) he might have crossed a red line for many people.

In your value system, being "openly fascist" is a huge deal. And in your worldview, events of the past couple days were a huge reveal.

Vs. from their PoV, both of those are far closer to "meh".

And the question is what happens when the value systems collide. Maybe nobody in any of his companies cares, which would be very interesting in itself. But I find that highly unlikely.

> ...what happens when...

If it is a big deal for them, then they seek other employment. His companies are normal companies. Not Bond Villain front orgs. Not "Hotel California" cults. Turnover is a normal thing at every big company on the planet.

I get the sense that you're yearning to read some "I Broke Up With Elon!" emo dumps. There probably are a fair number of those on the web.

Nah, I think it would be interesting to hear from people struggling with the choice. Maybe someone staying despite it all, while still thinking it's horrible.

About yesterday: Even the ADL said to cool our jets on calling it a fascist/Nazi salute. This leaves you a choice:

1. The ADL, despite being the most sensitive to what would happen to their people in an actual fascism, is still backing Trump (and Trump's people) because Trump is pro Israel, and they're willing to back Trump and take the risk of disaster coming to America in order to buy some support (for a time) for Israel.

2. The ADL actually knows what they're talking about, and is telling it straight, and everybody's overreacting to a false similarity.

Even if you don't recognize that 2 is actually a real possibility, at least some others do.

Look, there's plenty not to like about Musk, and about him having influence in the Trump administration. (There's plenty not to like about Trump, too.) But this may not be the clear red line that you think.

Or it may be. If so, then the ADL is either complicit or blind.

I do not blame ADL for being cautious for reasons you have already stated. However it was pretty clear. You can put it side by side with actual Nazis or neo-Nazis doing it and it is same thing.

As I said I understand public statements by organizations because Musk has now real power but there is no reason for ordinary people to give him benefit of doubt. Especially when he supports European anti-Semitic politicians.

For someone who still lives in Europe, whose big part of family perished in 40s, this is pretty big deal.

Fascism and antisemitism are two completely distinct ideologies, but there seems to be an undercurrent of propaganda trying to conflate the two as if they were one and the same. I have seen quite a few banal comments like yours in the past 24hrs.

The ADL doesn't care? I guess Latinos need not worry then!

Or perhaps what you think professing as being "openly fascist" didn't happen because you are in your own echo chamber?

Personally I believe Elon Musk is an immature prick, and that the U.S. is only nominally democratic, but "openly fascist"?

> but "openly fascist"?

Yes. What would you call this: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo...

Neo-Nazis are onboard with it: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-mus...

So is this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i68puj/have_we_l...

It wasn't an accident. Musk did it very deliberately. And he did it twice just to make sure.

Why don’t you post the full clip that gives context instead of some political opinion pieces

What is the missing context?

Also curious to hear about their thoughts, specially from those employees who have a firm anti-fascist belief. I would 100% be considering my resignation if I were in their position.

Apologies since I am not an employee but I wanted to share this story because I had this exact question back in 22: I went to DEFCON two years ago and visited the Aerospace Village where they had a handful of SpaceX employees running some sort of challenge and generally discussing what things SpaceX is working on (Starlink etc.)

Keep in mind in 22, the software dev community was just starting to wake up to the kind of person Musk was post Twitter, people in the automotive/space industry were screaming about him for years prior(anyone from /r/realtesla?)

Nevertheless I was determined to confront these employees and figure out why they continue to work for this guy. The pay actually sucks all things considered and the hours are long and brutal. We occasionally see that even if you are successful it is still not enough and he tosses employees out the door after they have worked so hard(just look at the recent firing of Rebecca Tinucci and her team).

They were very clear, its all about being a part of a team that is executing at a level no other company is doing. If you are a naturally exceptional performer, you want to be working with other exceptional people. Too many companies are just compromising at some level in the bureaucracy whether its poor management or tolerating poor performers or making decisions that kneecap the best people in the org.

As they were making this point, they showed me the teardown of the Starlink antenna, its a very nice looking design very impressive what they came up with in such a short timeframe. To them, this drive for excellence tops all. Maybe everyone has their own red line but you have to consider what you are giving up if you leave the Musk universe in favor of some principle: the loss of being on such a fast moving high performing team.

I do recall that they were uneasy talking about this subject but that could have just been because they dont know who I am at a hacker conference. Observing the Tesla fanboys over a decade, they have a built in paranoia and trauma from years of. watching the musk companies teeter on the brink and dealing with short sellers. In the past when covering Tesla from afar, ive observed this with the employees as well. (this is just my observation, I could be wrong)

We see the results: no one is even close to SpaceX, all the other satellite providers don't hold a candle to StarLink, while there are competitors to NeuraLink, he is blazing forward everything else be damned. Tesla still sits near the top of the technology stack when it comes to EV innovation only to potentially be outdone by the Chinese but if you are an American, you have few companies in the US operating at that level (probably Tesla, Rivian and Lucid to be honest). I am reminded of this every time I end up at an EVGo or Electrify America station only to curse off the company for not fixing their junk equipment.

This reminds me of my teenage years, when I was considering going into aerospace engineering to work on military aircraft. But I was immensely conflicted between the feelings of "This is where all the coolest tech is" and "I would be building murdering machines".

The pacifist side won and decades later I feel good about the decision. I managed to find other work that stimulated my curiosity without having to be part of immense suffering.

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