Woke(?)White💀☠🤪 folks management masterclass with Elon Musk
An Interactive Email Engagement: (Post-compliance)
Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following exiting prior senior management (supervisors have already been terminated, any of their direct reports could be in the next round of firings for cause is the not-so-veiled-threat here), they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this.
I was going to take this weekend off, as my first weekend off in a long time, but instead I will be on the Raptor line all night and through the weekend. (Due to Mr. Musks self-disclosed different- ability status, he will never suffer the consequences of time not spent in rest, recreation, and or re- connection with immediate family and loved ones that will damage such relationships among his non-ASD staff members.)
Unless you have critical family matters or cannot physically return to Hawthorne, we need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster. (Okay, let us, for the sake of argument, presume this is true. There is another choice a leader could make. Musk could allow brains and their bodies of residence significant downtime and a string of good nights' of rest to return to work after taking a well-deserved break and perhaps finally having new insights to engineering and or manufacturing problems. There is a massive open online body of research about the benefits of rest, sleep, and nutrition.)
The consequences for SpaceX if we can’t get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon has neither the volume *nor* the mass to orbit needed for satellite V2). Satellite V1 by itself is financially weak, whereas V2 is strong. (If this is previously unknown and thus new information for his staff, Space X may have issues no amount of overtime will ever resolve. Caveat Emptor.)
In addition, we are spooling up terminal production to several million units per year, which will consume massive capital, assuming that satellite V2 will be on orbit to handle the bandwidth demand. These terminals will be useless otherwise. ( Basically, the major take-away here, and reinforced in Mr. Musk's closing statement, is that the "crisis" will extend into the foreseeable future. Here is where he might have gotten a better response by adding a commitment to staff to reimburse them with compensatory time when the desired production rate is being achieved comsistently in 2022. Instead, Elon Musk has set a major precedent in corporate communications that will possibly become a Universal Standard Operating procedure. What if members integral to a team do not all work through their break? Can the crisis be averted with anything less than 100% compliance? If there is comparable alternative employment close by, I would begin an incognito job search or launch a serious side gig with the goal of giving an immediate or 2 week notice as soon my next paying gig(s) was (were) secure. NOTE FOR FUTURE: Whenever you "marry" an employer, its best to know as much about the owners, board of directors, and shareholders while negotiating ypir total compensation package. As long as they support the CEO in his maddness, it is never insane or life- threatening.)
What it comes down to is that we face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year. ( Well if you are a high risk = high tewards adrenalin junkie, you probably complied with your bosses' request. Hopefully, you will be financially secure and officially well into a thriving retirement career before your body collapses and you realize Mr. Musk had a profound, pervasive, and persistent predisposition to sociopathy and psychosis.)
Thanks,
Elon
