Upheaval on Twitter beneath its new proprietor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, will not be distracting SpaceX from delivering on NASA’s wants, the company administrator stated.
NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson stated that the tumultuous Twitter takeover has not affected SpaceX’s work up to now. He additionally obtained private assurances about billionaire Elon Musk from one among SpaceX’s senior officers, according to NBC News (opens in new tab). Nelson spoke with Gwynne Shotwell, a long-time worker of SpaceX who can be the corporate’s president and chief working officer, on Dec. 5, the report famous. The 2 had been attending the Kennedy Middle Honors, an American tradition celebration, in Washington, D.C.
When he requested whether or not Twitter was a distraction, Shotwell informed Nelson, “I guarantee you, it isn’t,” Nelson stated within the NBC report printed Sunday (Dec. 11).
“As you realize, she has been designated because the particular person to guide SpaceX,” Nelson stated. “So I take it straight from what we within the south say: the horse’s mouth. And he or she’s the horse that is working SpaceX.”
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SpaceX obtained its first contract from NASA in 2014 and is chargeable for sending astronauts to the International Space Station, together with a big share of its cargo, on variants of the Dragon spacecraft. Beginning in 2025 or 2026, SpaceX has additionally been tasked with touchdown NASA astronauts on the moon on Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 utilizing Starship, a brand new spaceship that has but to attain orbit regardless of not too long ago targeting a Dec. 1 flight.
Even earlier than Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 28, his conduct has induced consternation for some. On Twitter earlier than the takeover, numerous media studies indicated, he used crude jokes (opens in new tab) and insults (opens in new tab) and even referred to as a rescuer of Thai youngsters a pedophile (opens in new tab). Musk, who was Time Journal’s 2021 person of the year, was in current months accused of sexual misconduct with a flight attendant in 2016; his conduct of “distraction and embarrassment” was additionally the topic of an open letter by quite a few anonymous employees of SpaceX.
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Musk’s new possession has modified the panorama of Twitter’s tradition significantly, quite a few media studies have stated. He eliminated its board and most of its senior government workforce, out of the blue laid off more than half (opens in new tab) of the corporate’s then-7,500 staff, insisted that those that stay decide to “hardcore” work (opens in new tab) with “lengthy hours at excessive depth,” pressured the beforehand distant workforce back into the office (opens in new tab) with a couple of days’ discover, and reportedly put in sleeping quarters on site (opens in new tab), amongst quite a few different adjustments.
Musk additionally reinstituted quite a few controversial Twitter accounts, together with the Twitter account of President Donald Trump (opens in new tab). Trump had been banned from the platform after taking part in an important position within the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on Capitol Hill; Trump had falsely declared the federal election outcomes had been counterfeit and requested the U.S. folks to take motion on that.
Advertisers have been fleeing the platform (opens in new tab) within the meantime, lessening Twitter’s revenues significantly. Musk’s first try and institute “verified” $8 subscription accounts (opens in new tab) final month created a slew of parody accounts spreading disinformation in mere hours, till the enterprise was shut down.
Lengthy-time NASA contractor Lockheed Martin was among the many corporations that may have lost billions (opens in new tab) within the inventory market after a “verified” faux Lockheed account tweeted (opens in new tab) that the aerospace large would cease its army gross sales to the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a ebook about space drugs. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
