The Late Heavy Bombardment Brought Oceans of Water to Ancient Mars, New Research Says

NOVEMBER 17, 2022 MARC KAUFMAN

Mars was bombarded by water and carbon-rich asteroids in its infancy, delivering oceans of water and organic compounds needed for life. (Detlev Vans Ravenswaay/Science Source)

Mars looks largely desiccated today,but long ago it had oceans full of water delivered by asteroids during the Late Heavy Bombardment period, new research reports

During that tumultuous time solar system history some 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago, an intense barrage of primordial asteroids called chondrites crashed into Mars.

Using a measure called a global equivalent layer (GEL), the findings conclude that if all the water from the chondrites was in liquid form and was resting on the planet’s surface and not tied up within the crust or polar ice, it would fill a global ocean roughly 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet) deep.

What’s more, said Martin Bizzarro of the University of Copenhagen’s Centre for Star and Planet Formation and a co-author of the new paper, “our study is the first to firmly establish that organic molecules relevant for life must have been present in the early evolution of the planet together with water.”

This is because carbon-containing chondrites carried prebiotic elements essential to life.

That asteroids brought water (and organics) to Mars and other planets during the Bombardment is not new. But to quantify the amount and find such a huge delivery of water could change some of the long-running debate about early Mars and water.

A specimen of the Murchison meteorite specimen at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Among the most studied meteorites in the world, it is a carbonaceous chondrite from Mars that landed as a meteorite in Australia in 1969. It contains about 12 percent water and is the kind of broken-apart asteroid originally from the outer solar system could have delivered massive amounts of water to Mars, and Earth as well. (Wikipedia Commons)

As described in the new paper in Science Advances, the consensus view on Mars water has been that much of it came from outgassing from the planet’s mantle as it cooled and while the crust was forming.

But lead author Ke Zhu of the Université de Paris, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris and colleagues report that a substantial amount of water came instead from the carbonaceous chondrites from the outer Solar System. Chondrites are primordial asteroids and generally contain water. Asteroids from the inner solar system are generally water-poor because their proximity to the Sun leads to a significant drying out.

Zhu and his colleagues came to their conclusion after studying fragments catapulted from the surface of Mars after asteroid strikes which then made their way to Earth as meteorites.

The researchers studied 31 of them, looking most specifically for chromium isotopic fingerprints. Chromium-54 does not occur naturally on Mars and so its presence in crust samples from Mars indicates that the surface had been struck by material from somewhere else.

The researchers found enough of the material to estimate how many of the meteorites had crashed into Mars. And that, they note, allowed them to estimate how much water was carried to the planet, as well.

If the chondrites were only 10 percent water, they wrote, the rocks still would have transported enough water to equate to more than 1,000-feet global equivalent on Mars.

According to a release with the paper, the potential source of water from asteroids was poorly constrained prior to this work and the plausible volume of water delivered to early Mars was essentially unknown,

The paper is the work of scientists from the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Star and Planet Formation, working with colleagues from Université de Paris, ETH Zürich and the University of Bern.

A paper published in October presented evidence of a roughly 3.5-billion-year-old shoreline with substantial sedimentary accumulation, at least 900 m thick, that covered hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. The authors described it as evidence of a northern ocean. (Benjamin Cardenas / Penn State.)

The findings about the potentially huge amount of water that was delivered to Mars via asteroid inevitably brings up questions about the existence of the much-debated “northern ocean.”

The northern half of Mars is substantially lower than the southern highlands and that has led to many theories about how and when the north was covered with oceanic water.

The debate goes back and forth, and most recently a team from Penn State published a paper in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets used topographical data made available from Mars orbiting satellites to argue in favor of the ocean.

They wrote that they had found a substantial shoreline at the intersection of the northern lowlands and the southern highlands, and argued that it had been formed when a northern ocean was present. The research team was able to show definitive evidence of a roughly 3.5-billion-year-old shoreline with substantial sedimentary accumulation, at least 3,000 feetthick, that covered hundreds of thousands of square miles.

“Based on these findings, we know there had to have been a period when it was warm enough and the atmosphere was thick enough to support this much liquid water at one time,” said Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State and lead author on the study

“What immediately comes to mind as one the most significant points here is that the existence of an ocean of this size means a higher potential for life,” he said.

I asked Martin Bizzarro if his team’s findings of 1,000 global equivalent of water on early Mars from asteroids added to the northern ocean debate and he wrote that the 1,000 feet “is just a means of reporting the amount of water on Mars.” And yes, “it could represent a deeper ocean restricted to the northern hemisphere.”


The Kuiper Belt extends outward from the orbit of Neptune. The region is vast and is where many comets form as well as “outer solar system” asteroid with water ice or hydrated minerals in them. {NASA and A. Feild (STScI)}

The Late Heavy Bombardment is a theory and, although widely accepted, remains difficult to prove conclusively.

It is generally though to have been caused by migrations of the solar system’s largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and resulting orbital changes in millions and millions of asteroids and comets from the outer solar system.

Evidence for the Late Heavy Bombardment comes importantly from rock samples of Moon craters brought back by the Apollo astronauts. Isotopic dating showed that the rocks were last molten during impact events in a rather narrow interval of time — 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago — suggesting that a large proportion of craters were formed during this period.

What is called the Nice model, popular among planetary scientists, postulates that the giant planets underwent orbital migration during that time, scattering objects from the asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, or both, into eccentric orbits, and into the path of the terrestrial planets.

The main piece of evidence for a lunar cataclysm comes from the radiometric ages of impact melt rocks collected on the moon. The majority of these impact melts are thought to have formed during the collision of asteroids or comets tens of miles across, forming impact craters hundreds of miles in diameter. The Apollo 15, 16, and 17 landing sites were chosen because of their proximity to basins thought to have concentrations of these ancient melt rocks.

The apparent clustering of ages of these impact melts, between about 3.8 and 4.1 Ga, led to to the hypothesis that the ages record an intense bombardment of the moon, and by extension other inner solar systems planets and moons.

While the same water-carrying asteroids landed on Earth, Mars, Venus and the moon, only Earth has had a thick atmosphere protected by a strong magnetic field that kept the water and its components from escaping into the atmosphere.

Following this line of thinking, early Mars could have had oceans because of its thicker atmosphere then but eventually it lost much of its water into space as the atmosphere and magnetic field dissipated. And since the moon has never had more than a very thin atmosphere, it never had oceans of water at all.



Marc Kaufman( Creator and Writer )
Marc Kaufman is the author of two books about space: “Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission” and “First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Search for Life Beyond Earth.” He is also an experienced journalist, having spent three decades at The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He began writing the column in October 2015, when NASA’s NExSS initiative was in its infancy. While the “Many Worlds” column is supported and informed by NASA’s Astrobiology Program, any opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Ancient global ocean on Mars may have come from carbon-rich chondrite meteorites from the outer solar system

The NWA 7533 meteorite, representing a fragment of the ancient crust of Mars. 

Credit: Martin Bizzarro

A team of researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Center for Star and Planet Formation, working with colleagues from Université de Paris, ETH Zürich and the University of Bern, has found evidence suggesting that most of the water that made up an ancient global ocean on Mars came from carbon-rich chondrite meteorites from the outer solar system. The study is published in Science Advances.

Prior research has suggested that at one time, Mars was either mostly or entirely covered by a watery ocean, and that the water came from gases seeping from below the surface and liquifying as they cooled. In this new effort, the researchers suggest the water more likely came from another source—meteorites traveling from the outer solar system.

The researchers came to this conclusion after studying fragments flung from the surface of Mars after asteroid strikes, which made their way to Earth as meteorites. The researchers studied 31 of them, looking most specifically for chromium isotopic fingerprints. Chromium-54 does not occur naturally on Mars; thus, its presence in crust samples from Mars would indicate that the surface had been struck by material from somewhere else.

The researchers found enough of the material to estimate how many of the meteorites had crashed into Mars. And that, they note, allowed them to estimate how much water was carried to the planet, as well.

An example of a shergottite meteorite, which is a volcanic rock from the martian mantle

 that erupted at the planet’s surface. Credit: Martin Bizzarro

Prior research has shown that such meteorites are 10% water. That allowed them to calculate how much water was likely delivered to the planet—it was enough to cover the entire surface to a depth of 300 meters. This finding suggests that water-rich asteroids were the main source of water filling Mars' oceans. It also suggests that most of the water on other bodies in the solar system likely came from the outer solar system via meteorites as well.

An example of a shergottite meteorite, which is a volcanic rock from the martian mantle 

that erupted at the planet’s surface. Credit: Martin Bizzarro

More information: Ke Zhu et al, Late delivery of exotic chromium to the crust of Mars by water-rich carbonaceous asteroids, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8415

Journal information: Science Advances 

© 2022 Science X NetworkNew clues about early atmosphere on Mars suggest a wet planet capable of supporting life

What is Mastodon? A Social Media Expert Explains How the ‘Federated’ Network Works and Why it Won’t be a New Twitter


By Brian C. Keegan,
Assistant Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder,
The Conversation
NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Mastodon is billing itself as one of several alternatives to Twitter.

SOCIAL MEDIA

In the wake of Elon Musk’s noisy takeover of Twitter, people have been looking for alternatives to the increasingly toxic microblogging social media platform. Many of those fleeing or hedging their bets have turned to Mastodon, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of new users since Twitter’s acquisition.

Like Twitter, Mastodon allows users to post, follow people and organizations, and like and repost others’ posts.

But while Mastodon supports many of the same social networking features as Twitter, it is not a single platform. Instead, it’s a federation of independently operated, interconnected servers. Mastodon servers are based on open-source software developed by German nonprofit Mastodon gGmbH. The interconnected Mastodon servers, along with other servers that can “talk” to Mastodon servers, are collectively dubbed the “fediverse.”
MASTODON U.

A key aspect of the fediverse is that each server is governed by rules set by the people who operate it. If you think of the fediverse as a university, each Mastodon server is like a dorm.

Which dorm you’re initially assigned to can be somewhat random but still profoundly shapes the kind of conversations you overhear and the relationships you form. You can still interact with people who live in other dorms, but the leaders and rules in your dorm shape what you can do.

If you’re particularly unhappy with your dorm, you can move to a new housing situation – another dorm, a sorority, an apartment – that is a better fit, and you bring your relationships with you. But you are then subject to the rules of the new place where you live. There are hundreds of Mastodon servers, called instances, where you can set up your account, and these instances have different rules and norms for who can join and what content is permitted.

In contrast, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook put everyone in a single, gigantic dorm. As millions or billions of people joined, the companies running these platforms added more floors and bedrooms. Everyone could communicate with each other and theoretically join each other’s conversations within the dorm, but everyone also has to live under the same rules.

If you didn’t like or didn’t follow the rules, you had to leave the megadorm, but you were not able to bring your relationships with you to your new housing – a different social media platform – or talk to people who stayed in your original megadorm. These platforms tapped into the resulting fear of missing out to lock people into a highly surveilled dorm where their otherwise private behavior was mined to sell ads.

Mastodon supports all the familiar social media functions: posting, liking, reposting and following. Eugen Rochko via Wikimedia Commons

INCENTIVES FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

The big social media companies sell ads to pay for two primary services: the technical infrastructure of hardware and software that lets users access the platform, and the social infrastructure of usability, policy and content moderation that keeps the platform in line with users’ expectations and rules.

In the Mastodon collection of servers, if you don’t like what someone is doing, you can cut ties and move to another server but keep the relationships you already made. This removes the fear of missing out that could otherwise lock users into a server with other people’s bad behavior.

There are a few factors that should put Mastodon servers under strong pressure to actively and responsibly moderate the behavior of their members. First, most servers don’t want other servers cutting ties entirely, so there is strong reputational pressure to police members’ behavior and not tolerate trolls and harassers.

Second, people can migrate between servers relatively easily, so the server administrators can compete to provide the best moderation experience that attracts and keeps people around.

Third, the technical and financial costs of creating a new server are much greater than the costs of moderating a server. This should limit the number of new servers cropping up to evade bans, which would avoid the endless “whack-a-mole” challenge of new spam and troll accounts that the big social media platforms have to deal with.
NOT ALL MILK AND HONEY

The federated server model on Mastodon also has potential drawbacks. First, finding a server to join on Mastodon can be hard, especially when a flood of people trying to find servers leads to the creation of waitlists, and the rules and values of the people running a server aren’t always easy to find.

Second, there are significant financial and technical challenges with maintaining servers that grow with the number of members and their activity. After the honeymoon is over, Mastodon users should be prepared for membership fees, NPR-style fundraising campaigns or podcast-style promotional ads to cover server hosting costs that can go into the hundreds of dollars per month per server.

Third, despite calls for newspapers, universities and governments to host their own servers, there are complicated legal and professional questions that could severely limit public institutions’ abilities to moderate their “dorms” effectively. Professional societies with their own methods of verification and established codes of conduct and ethics may be better equipped to host and moderate Mastodon servers than other types of institutions.

Fourth, the current “nuclear option” of servers entirely cutting ties with other servers leaves little room for repairing relations and reengagement. Once the tie between two servers is severed, it would be difficult to renew it. This situation could drive destabilizing user migrations and reinforce polarizing echo chambers.

Finally, there are tensions between longtime Mastodon users and newcomers around content warnings, hashtags, post visibility, accessibility and tone that are different from what was popular on Twitter.

Still, with Twitter melting down and the long-standing issues with the major social media platforms, for many people the new land of Mastodon and the fediverse doesn’t have to be all milk and honey.



Step-by-step instructions for joining Mastodon.

Brian C. Keegan, Assistant Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Twitter hit with mass resignations after Elon Musk's ‘hardcore’ ultimatum

Employees appear to be rejecting Musk's vision for "Twitter 2.0."

K. Bell
@karissabe
November 17, 2022 

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Elon Musk is now facing a new crisis at Twitter as a wave of employees seemed to reject his ultimatum of an “extremely hardcore” Twitter 2.0 or leave the company. Hours after a deadline for workers to check “yes” on a Google form accepting “long hours at high intensity, it seems a large number of employees have rejected Musk’s vision.

Exactly how many employees opted for severance over remaining at Twitter isn’t yet clear. The New York Times reported the number was in the “hundreds,” while other early reports suggest the number could be much higher. The departures come after Musk already cut 50 percent of Twitter’s jobs in mass layoffs.

On Twitter, dozens of Twitter employees who had survived the initial round of layoffs tweeted farewell messages. One employee tweeted a video of a group of workers inside Twitter’s office counting down to the 5pm ET deadline on Musk’s ultimatum. “We’re all about to get fired,” he said.

Others tweeted messages alluding to Musk’s policies. In his Wednesday morning message, Musk had said that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

As the deadline approached, Musk reportedly grew concerned about how many remaining employees could leave the company. In a new memo, he appeared to walk back some of his earlier comments banning all remote work, though he still said he would fire managers if remote workers on their teams weren’t performing.

But it seems the concession wasn’t enough for many at Twitter Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer reported Thursday that Musk and his lieutenants were struggling to figure out just how many employees had declined to check the “yes” box on his Google form, and that Twitter would be closing down access to its offices for a few days as an extra precaution.

The departures raise new questions about whether the remaining Twitter engineers will be able to reliably keep the service up and running. Current and former employees are already speculating that the latest exodus could further put Twitter’s ability to function at risk, especially with the start of the World Cup a few days away.

Twitter no longer has communications staff, but Musk so far hasn't publicly commented on the resignations.

With ‘no one left to fix things’ at Elon Musk's Twitter, farewell memes galore

World News

Published on Nov 18, 2022 

The No. 1 topic trending in the United States was “RIPTwitter” followed by the names of other social media platforms: “Tumblr,” “Mastodon” and “MySpace."

The departures include many engineers responsible for fixing bugs and preventing service outages, raising questions about the stability of the platform amid the loss of employees.(Reuters)

ByHT News Desk

Reports of exodus at Twitter Inc. have triggered speculations around the future of the company, with many bidding adieu to the micro-blogging platform even as new owner Elon Musk maintained that the site is witnessing “all-time high” usage. Hundreds of Twitter employees are estimated to be leaving the beleaguered social media company following an ultimatum from Musk, who demanded staff sign up for "long hours at high intensity," or lose their jobs.

"If it does break, there is no one left to fix things in many areas," Reuters quoted the person as saying.

The company, meanwhile, reportedly notified employees that it will temporarily shut its offices and cut badge access until Monday.

As the situation looks break at Twitter, social media users have flooded the platform with messages saying farewell to the micro-blogging platform.

“I will miss you all if this is indeed the end,” British-American journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan wrote on Twitter. “It’s easy to be snarky & make references to ‘the hellsite’ (I do!) but I met wonderful people on here, connected with people I’d have never connected with, literally got jobs I wouldn’t have gotten thanks to this site.”

#RIPTwitter was among the top trending hashtags in India with more than 329,000 tweets at the time of writing this.

Here are some of the reactions:

Mass exodus at Twitter after workers reject Elon Musk's 'hardcore' demands

By CNN

Nov 18, 2022

Another employee exodus appears to be underway at Twitter as many workers rejected Elon Musk's terms for staying with the company, choosing instead to depart, according to multiple current and former employees.

As the deadline approached for Twitter employees to respond to Elon Musk's ultimatum to commit to working in an "extremely hardcore" fashion at the company or leave, some employees appeared to publicly indicate they had chosen the latter option.

On Thursday afternoon, Twitter staffers began posting the salute emoji, which has become a signal that someone is exiting the company.

READ MORE: Musk says Twitter employees must commit to 'hardcore' work or leave

Twitter employees are resigning en masse from the social media giant. (AP)

One Twitter employee said in a tweet that deciding to join the company was "one of the easiest decisions ever made. Deciding to leave today was 100 per cent the opposite."

Meanwhile, an internal Slack channel at the company was filled with employees posting the salute emoji after the 10am AEDT deadline, indicating they had chosen not to sign Musk's pledge and depart the company, employees told CNN.

Twitter's remaining workforce had until 10am AEDT to decide whether they wanted to be a part of the culture Musk wants to implement at the social media company, or else effectively resign, according to an email he sent to staff Wednesday.

A former Twitter executive who recently exited the company described Thursday's employee exits as a "mass exodus".

READ MORE: Elon Musk ends remote working at Twitter

On Thursday evening following the exits, employees remaining at the company received an email alerting them that the company's offices will be temporarily closed and badge access will be restricted through Monday, according to a copy of the email obtained by CNN from a current Twitter employee.
Musk's team similarly shuttered offices during the mass layoffs earlier this month out of a concern for safety and an apparent fear that exiting employees could attempt to sabotage the company on their way out.

Two Twitter employees told CNN ahead of the deadline on Thursday that they planned to reject the ultimatum, citing a toxic work environment they say the billionaire has introduced.

Another Twitter employee told CNN Wednesday they were still weighing the decision, saying the email from Musk "felt like a punch in the gut because no matter how you felt about wanting to stay or wanting to go, you were forced to make a decision and feel like you're up against the time clock to make the best decision for you and your family".

The employee added: "Those decisions are more than just 24 hours."

Musk told employees on Wednesday that his goal is to build "Twitter 2.0" and that employees who choose to stay will be required to commit to working "long hours at high intensity" and presumably agreeing to Musk's demand for Twitter employees, who have been largely working remotely, to return to in-office work.

As of midday Thursday, employees still did not have clarity on which remote-work exceptions would be granted if they decide to stay, one employee said.

READ MORE: Twitter Blue signups unavailable after raft of fake accounts

Elon Musk testifies in a courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware in an unrelated trial over his Tesla pay. (AP)

Later on Thursday, amid an apparent scramble by management to avoid losing too many workers to the ultimatum, Musk sent an email to staff attempting to clarify his position on remote work, according to text of the email obtained by CNN from a Twitter employee who asked not to be identified.

"Regarding remote work, all that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring that you are making an excellent contribution," Musk said in the email, adding that workers would be expected to attend in-person meetings no less than once a month.

Twenty minutes later, Musk sent a follow-up email saying: "At risk of stating the obvious, any manager who falsely claims that someone reporting to them is doing excellent work or that a given role is essential, whether remote or not, will be exited from the company."

The decision to issue an ultimatum came after Musk earlier this month fired half of Twitter's staff, reducing its workforce to around 3700 employees, and also reportedly cut many of Twitter's contract workers.

He also pushed out its top leadership and dissolved the board of directors.

Musk also recently fired some employees for criticising him in tweets or on internal Slack channels.

"I don't want to stick around to build a product that's being poisoned from the inside and out," said one of the employees who plans to reject the ultimatum, but requested anonymity to avoid putting the severance at risk.

"Everyone has a price to a certain degree and this severance gives me some comfort into looking for a better environment in the time frame despite the economy." 

Elon Musk demands to Twitter employees appears to have led to a mass exodus. (Getty)

That employee said management now appears to have grown concerned about the number of people planning to depart and are "scrambling" to convince talent to stay.
Twitter, which has reportedly eliminated most of its public relations team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another Twitter employee, who asked not to be quoted, shared similar concerns and said they planned to also exit the company.

A recently laid-off employee who remains in touch with former coworkers told CNN that everyone they had spoken to plans to reject Musk's ultimatum and exit the company.

"People can't overlook the public mockery and firing of other employees," the former employee told CNN.

"In the same vein, they can't overlook or feel comfortable working for someone who has handled the last few weeks in the way Elon has."

"People don't want to sacrifice their mental health and family lives to make the richest man in the world richer," the former employee added.

READ MORE: Gabby Petito's family awarded millions in wrongful death lawsuit
But the decision may not be so easy for others.

The ultimatum comes during a difficult period for the tech industry, following mass layoffs and hiring freeze announcements at many major firms including Meta, Amazon, Lyft and others.

Employees working in the United States from other countries could also risk losing their work visas if they leave the company.

A fourth employee told CNN they plan to stay at the company "because change is rarely influenced from the outside".

The shake-up likely to come as a result of the ultimatum will be the last element of the "fundamental organisational restructuring" following Musk's takeover, he told a Delaware court Wednesday during a trial over his Tesla pay package.

Musk said in the Wednesday email that the "new Twitter" will be "much more engineering-driven," leaving some non-engineering workers questioning whether their jobs could be at risk even if they opt to stay.

"There's no assurance in this, you're just like, 'I might be able to advocate for myself, I might not,'" the employee who expressed uncertainty about the decision said.

"What's behind this door? You don't know. The only door you know that's certain is the exit door."

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Twitter staff quit after Musk ultimatum

Numerous Twitter employers appear to have opted to walk away from the beleaguered company a day after Elon Musk issued a "hardcore" ultimatum

. Photo: AAP

AAP Nov 18


Hundreds of Twitter employees are estimated to be leaving the beleaguered social media company following an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk that staffers sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or leave.

In a poll on the workplace app Blind, which verifies employees through their work email addresses and allows them to share information anonymously, 42 per cent of 180 people chose the answer for “Taking exit option, I’m free!”

A quarter said they had chosen to stay “reluctantly” and only seven per cent of the poll participants said they “clicked yes to stay, I’m hardcore”.

Mr Musk was meeting some top employees to try to convince them to stay, said one current employee and a recently departed employee who is in touch with Twitter colleagues.

While it is unclear how many employees have chosen to stay, the numbers highlight the reluctance of some staffers to remain at a company where Mr Musk has hastened to fire half its employees including top management, and is ruthlessly changing the culture to emphasise long hours and an intense pace.

The company notified employees that it would close its offices and cut badge access until Monday, according to two sources. Security officers had begun kicking employees out of the office on Thursday evening, one source said.

Twitter, which has lost many of its communication team members, did not respond to a request for comment.

In a private chat on Signal with about 50 Twitter staffers, nearly 40 said they had decided to leave, according to the former employee.

And in a private Slack group for Twitter’s current and former employees, about 360 people joined a new channel titled “voluntary lay-off”, said a person with knowledge of the Slack group.

Blue hearts and salute emojis flooded Twitter and its internal chatrooms on Thursday, the second time in two weeks as Twitter employees said their goodbyes.

Early on Wednesday, Mr Musk had emailed Twitter employees, saying: “Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore”.

The email asked staff to click “yes” if they wanted to stick around. Those who did not respond by 5pm EST on Thursday would be considered to have quit and given a severance package, the email said.

Elon Musk has undermined Twitter's integrity : US lawmakers urge antitrust probe

The US lawmakers claimed that Twitter's new Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, has taken alarming steps that have undermined the integrity and safety of the platform and have urged a probe.

India Today Web Desk
New Delhi,

UPDATED: Nov 18, 2022

An image of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration. (Photo: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: Seven Democratic senators have accused Elon Musk, who is now the owner of Twitter, of disregarding users' rights and have urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to probe his handling of users’ privacy and security. Senators have stated that Musk has 'undermined the integrity and safety of the platform', news agency Reuters reported. The US lawmakers claimed that Twitter's new Chief Executive Officer, has taken alarming steps that have undermined the integrity and safety of the platform.

The Democratic lawmakers have called for the consumer protection regulator to 'vigorously oversee' its 2011 consent decree with Twitter. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren have requested that the government consider taking enforcement steps against the business and, as necessary, specific executives.

'ANNOUNCED NEW FEATURES DESPITE WARNINGS'

The lawmakers in their letter to the FTC wrote that ever since Musk took over Twitter several weeks ago, the platform was displaying 'serious, wildful disregard for the safety and security of its users'. US Senators in their letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan wrote, "In recent weeks, Twitter’s new Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, has taken alarming steps that have undermined the integrity and safety of the platform, and announced new features despite clear warnings those changes would be abused for fraud, scams, and dangerous impersonation."

Asking the FTC to investigate Musk and other executives' actions, the US lawmakers wrote, "We urge the Commission to vigorously oversee its consent decree with Twitter and to bring enforcement actions against any breached or business practices that are unfair or deceptive, including bringing civil penalties and imposing liability on individual Twitter executives where appropriate."

The letter also pointed out the recent layoffs and resignations that have hit the company since Musk took over Twitter last month. They claimed that Musk has only prioritised increasing profits while disregarding other key aspects of the company.

TRACKING RECENT DEVELOPMENTS, SAYS FTC

The FTC is yet to comment on the matter and it stated that it was 'tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern', the Financial Times said in a report. Notably, after the blockbuster takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk brought a number of significant changes, fired Twitter's previous CEO and other senior leaders and laid off half of its staff.

ALSO READ | Elon Musk is temporary CEO at Twitter, says he wants someone else to run it

There have been worries that the turmoil may cause Twitter to break the terms of a May 2022 settlement with the American regulator, when Twitter agreed to enhance its privacy procedures and put the responsibility on individuals who held specific roles.

POST-MODERN ROBBER BARON

Eight SpaceX employees say they were fired for speaking up against Elon Musk

Thu, November 17, 2022 
By Akash Sriram and Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) -Eight former employees of SpaceX have filed unfair labor practice charges with a U.S. labor board against the rocket maker, alleging they were let go for speaking up against founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk.

The employees said on Thursday they were fired for being part of a group that had drafted and circulated a letter to SpaceX executives in June criticizing Musk, the world's richest person, and urging executives to make the firm's culture more inclusive.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters reported in June that SpaceX fired at least five employees who were involved in drafting the letter, which called Musk a "distraction and embarrassment" to the company.

The charges filed on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board allege that SpaceX fired five employees the day after the letter was revealed, and four others in the two months after.

While two of the employees filed charges on their own, attorneys filed charges on behalf of six others who are proceeding anonymously.

U.S. labor law prohibits employers from firing workers who band together to advocate for better working conditions. When the NLRB finds that firings violated the law, it can order that workers be reinstated and given back pay.

Musk, also the head of electric-car maker Tesla Inc, has been in the headlines over his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and attempts to remake the social media company after he warned of a potential bankruptcy.

Musk also has been on trial this week over a shareholder challenge to his $56 billion Tesla compensation package.

The letter sent to SpaceX executives in June focused on a series of tweets Musk had made since 2020, many of which were sexually suggestive.

The employees claimed Musk's conduct did not align with the company's policies on diversity and workplace misconduct. They called on SpaceX to publicly condemn Musk's comments and to more clearly define the type of conduct prohibited by company policy.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru, Paresh Dave in San Francisco and Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)

Fired SpaceX employees accuse company of violating labor law


 The SpaceX logo is displayed on a building, Tuesday, May 26, 2020, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Several SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an open letter calling out CEO Elon Musk’s behavior have filed a complaint accusing the company of violating labor laws. The complaint, made Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, to the National Labor Relations Board, says five employees who participated in organizing the June letter were fired a day after the letter was sent to company executives. 

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File) 

HALELUYA HADERO and STEPHEN GROVES
Thu, November 17, 2022 

NEW YORK (AP) — Several SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an open letter calling out CEO Elon Musk’s behavior have filed a complaint accusing the company of violating labor laws.

The complaint, made Wednesday to the National Labor Relations Board, details the aftermath of what allegedly happened inside SpaceX after employees circulated the letter in June, which, among other things, called on executives to condemn Musk’s public behavior on Twitter — including making light of allegations he sexually harassed a flight attendant — and hold everyone accountable for unacceptable conduct.

The letter was sent weeks after a media report surfaced that Musk paid $250,000 to the flight attendant to quash a potential sexual harassment lawsuit against him. The billionaire has denied the allegations.

Employees in their letter urged SpaceX to uniformly enforce its policy against unacceptable behavior and commit to a transparent process for responses to claims of misconduct. A day later, Paige Holland-Thielen and four other employees who participated in organizing the letter were fired, according to the filing, which was made by Holland-Thielen to a regional NLRB office in California. Four additional employees were fired weeks later for their involvement in the letter.

A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and is currently running Twitter, prefers to do things his own way even if that means running afoul of rules and regulations. He's currently in a defiant fight with Civil Rights department, a California regulator that is suing Tesla for rampant racial discrimination.

Some view Musk's management style as autocratic and demanding, as evidenced by a recent email he sent to Twitter staff giving them until Thursday evening to decide whether they want to remain a part of the business. Musk wrote that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore” to build “a breakthrough Twitter 2.0″ and that long hours at high intensity will be needed for success.

A number of engineers also said on Twitter they were fired last week after saying something critical of Musk, either publicly on Twitter or on an internal messaging board for Twitter employees.

In a statement, Holland-Thielen said as a woman engineer at SpaceX, she experienced “deep cultural problems” and comforted colleagues who had experienced similar issues.

“It was clear that this culture was created from the top level,” she said.

Still, she said part of what she liked about the company was that any person could escalate issues to leadership and be taken seriously.

“We drafted the letter to communicate to the executive staff on their terms and show how their lack of action created tangible barriers to the long term success of the mission,” Holland-Thielen said. “We never imagined that SpaceX would fire us for trying to help the company succeed.”

The firings coincide with Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter. Around the same time, the billionaire used a sexual term to make fun of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ belly and also posted a poop emoji during an online discussion with then-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

After terminating the first set of employees, SpaceX allegedly interrogated dozens of others over the next two months in private meetings, telling them they couldn’t disclose those conversations to anyone else due to attorney-client privilege, according to the complaint. Four additional employees who helped draft or share the letter were fired in July and August, the filing said, adding up to nine terminations in total.

“Management used this ‘ends justifies the means’ philosophy to turn a blind eye to the ongoing mistreatment, harassment, and abuse reported by my colleagues, much of which was directly encouraged and inspired by the words and actions of the CEO,” said Tom Moline, who was also fired from SpaceX after organizing the letter.

Jeffery Pfeffer, a professor who specializes in organizational behavior at Stanford University’s business school, said that the allegations were hardly a surprise given Musk’s leadership style at Twitter. Musk’s success at companies like Tesla and SpaceX have created what he labeled as hubris under the false notion that it was “all about individual genius.”

“Powerful people get to break the rules. They don’t think they are bound by the same conventions as other people,” Pfeffer said, criticizing Musk’s behavior. He said it showed the arrogance of Musk, one of the world’s richest men: “Why would he think he is a mere mortal?"

___

Groves reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota

SpaceX faces labor charges after firing employees who criticized Elon Musk

Employees wrote letter calling Musk a "source of distraction and embarrassment."

JON BRODKIN - 11/17/2022, 

Eight former SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an internal letter criticizing Elon Musk have filed charges claiming they were unlawfully fired. Unfair labor practice charges for the "retaliatory firings" were filed yesterday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the former employees' law firm said in a press release.

"The charges allege that SpaceX violated the National Labor Relations Act by terminating the employees for engaging in protected concerted activity," the Lieff Cabraser law firm said. "Specifically, the employees were fired for being part of a larger group that drafted a letter to SpaceX's executive team expressing concern about recent allegations of sexual harassment by CEO Elon Musk, and his harmful behavior on Twitter that hurt the company's reputation and also the company culture."

The letter urged "SpaceX to take appropriate remedial action, including condemning Musk's harmful Twitter behavior, holding leadership accountable, and seeking uniform definition and enforcement of SpaceX's 'No Asshole' policy. The letter was shared internally within SpaceX only, and called for other employees to sign on to endorse the recommendations," the press release said.

We wrote about the firings in June. At the time, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell wrote in an email to staff that the "letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views."
Culture problems “created from the top level”

The employees' letter said SpaceX executives should "publicly address and condemn Elon's harmful Twitter behavior" and that the company "must swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon's personal brand." The letter called out "recent allegations against our CEO and his public disparagement of the situation," in reference to a report that SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018. Musk denied the claim, and Shotwell wrote in an email to staff that "I believe the allegations to be false."Advertisement

The employees' letter also said that "Elon's behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks." The letter accused the company of not applying its policies equally to executives and employees, writing that "SpaceX must establish safe avenues for reporting and uphold clear repercussions for all unacceptable behavior, whether from the CEO or an employee starting their first day."

The charges filed with the NLRB "allege that SpaceX fired five employees the day after the letter came out, and four more over the course of the following two months," the law firm said. The complaints cover eight of the nine employees. "Two employees—Tom Moline and Paige Holland-Thielen—filed charges on their own behalf. Attorneys Anne Shaver and Laurie Burgess filed charges on behalf of six other employees who are proceeding anonymously," the press release said.

Holland-Thielen issued this statement:

As a woman engineer at SpaceX I experienced the deep cultural problems firsthand and spent countless hours comforting my peers and colleagues going through the same things and worse. It was clear that this culture was created from the top level. Part of what was supposed to be so great about SpaceX was that any person at any level could escalate issues to leadership and be taken seriously and treated with respect. We drafted the letter to communicate to the executive staff on their terms and show how their lack of action created tangible barriers to the long term success of the mission. We never imagined that SpaceX would fire us for trying to help the company succeed.

Moline said SpaceX management used an "'ends justifies the means' philosophy to turn a blind eye to the ongoing mistreatment, harassment, and abuse reported by my colleagues, much of which was directly encouraged and inspired by the words and actions of the CEO. We drafted the open letter to bring these issues to the forefront and start the hard work of building a culture that was worthy of these lofty goals."

“SpaceX is Elon and Elon is SpaceX”

The New York Times reported today that after the firings, about 20 engineers were invited to a meeting at SpaceX headquarters to discuss Musk. Two SpaceX employees who attended described what happened:

They said Jon Edwards, the vice president leading the meeting, characterized the letter as an extremist act and declared that the writers had been fired for distracting the company and taking on Mr. Musk. When asked whether the chief executive could sexually harass his workers with impunity, Mr. Edwards did not appear to answer, the two employees said. But they said the meeting had a recurring theme—that Mr. Musk could do whatever he wanted at the company.

"SpaceX is Elon and Elon is SpaceX," the two recalled hearing Mr. Edwards declare.

Former NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman, who served on the NLRB for over 23 years and was the chair from 2009 to 2011, reportedly said the labor board is likely to side with the fired workers. Liebman "said a letter seeking clarification of a company's sexual harassment policies was generally protected by federal labor law," the NYT wrote. "She said the company could argue that the letter's writers sought to criticize Mr. Musk, activity that isn't necessarily protected, rather than to improve their workplace. But she said the labor board would probably disagree because the posts from Mr. Musk that employees criticized could be seen as creating a hostile work environment."

Lieff Cabraser attorney Anne Shaver contended in the firm's announcement that "SpaceX committed egregious violations of the law in its handling of the open letter. It had an extraordinary opportunity to engage with dedicated employees who cared enough about the company to speak up about harassment and discrimination. Instead, it viciously retaliated against them."

At Twitter, Musk’s layoffs trigger another lawsuit

Meanwhile, Musk has fired Twitter engineers for correcting and criticizing him on Twitter and Slack. Musk also conducted massive layoffs at Twitter, cutting about half of the company's 7,500 employees. A class-action lawsuit alleged the Musk-led company violated Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification laws, which require 60 days' advance written notice before a mass layoff.

A second round of Twitter layoffs targeted about 5,000 contractors. That led to another class-action lawsuit filed yesterday, alleging similar violations of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification laws and failure to pay all wages and benefits immediately upon termination. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan is representing the former employees and contractors in both lawsuits.

Musk's electric car company, Tesla, is facing a similar lawsuit alleging that its layoffs violated Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification laws. Separately, the NLRB ruled in August that Tesla violated US labor law by implicitly banning employees from wearing shirts with union insignias.