SpaceX fires several employees who criticised CEO Elon Musk

LONDON: Elon Musk's SpaceX has fired several employees involved in writing an open letter that was critical of the billionaire's public behaviour, according to a media report. SpaceX, the private rocket company in a statement on Thursday said that it fired employees who helped write and distribute an open letter criticizing the behaviour of its chief executive, The New York Times reported.

As per the American publication, the letter termed the billionaire's public behaviour and tweeting "a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment" and asked the company to rein him in. Tesla chief Musk is currently closing a USD 44 billion deal to buy Twitter.

Earlier Musk said that the takeover of Twitter Inc is temporarily on hold due to the calculation of fake accounts in it. "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 per cent of users," Musk tweeted tagging a media report.

Musk's announcement came before the opening of trading in the American stock exchanges. In the pre-market trading, Twitter Inc share price crashed to USD 37.10, which is 17.7 per cent lower than its previous day's close.

Musk reached an agreement with Twitter on the acquisition of the social network for USD 54.20 per share in a transaction valued at approximately USD 44 billion in late April. He later said that he would like to revolutionize Twitter's role in public debate as "free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated." The billionaire said earlier that he was ready to spend USD 21 billion of his own funds to seal the deal, and that Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Bank of America, Barclays, and other institution will provide USD 25.5 billion in debt financing, with some USD 12.5 billion to of the loan to be secured with Tesla shares.