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On a cool mid-October morning, Juli Briskman was riding her bike on a road in northern Virginia. On most days, she could probably expect to see a few cars pass her, but that particular morning, a long line of cars passed, and Juli figured out pretty quickly that it was Donald Trump’s motorcade. Apparently, she didn’t like the guy, and raised the middle finger of her left hand to signal those feelings. Someone else snapped a photo, which found its way to social media.
Her face didn’t appear in the photo, but someone at work must’ve recognized her and had a talk with her boss. When asked about it, she admitted to being the woman in the photo. For this, she was promptly fired for violating a “code of conduct policy.” Later, she sued the company, and only partially won. Freedom of speech only protects people from consequences imposed by the government, and the law in her employer’s state doesn’t protect freedom of speech from firings. So, her firing for flying Trump the bird was completely legal. She did, however, win some severance pay.
While some employers might appreciate this woman’s exercise of free speech, most have reputational damage to consider. If too many people start associating the company with an employee’s political opinions or other controversial activities, it could lead to lost business. So, the employer generally doesn’t want to take a chance on keeping a controversial employee around. Whether this is fair or right is a different question, but nobody’s going to want to bet the company on something like flying someone elected to public office the bird.
When it comes to heads of companies, they can’t be fired as easily. For a sole proprietor or other private business, the owner is free to take those risks with their own behavior and is free to even run the company into the ground. For example, there was a man who owned a small shop in El Paso decades ago who shot a man over theft of bricks. He beat the case in court, claiming defense of property, but the public in the community didn’t like what he did and stopped buying his goods and services.
However, when you get into corporate entities with boards and shareholders, it’s not so simple. Everyone reports to somebody, at least in theory. Most employees report to the executive officers, who then report to the CEO (or technoking, or whatever other name you might give to the chief executive). The chief executive, in turn, reports to the board of directors. The board is accountable to the shareholders of the company, some of which might be the board or executives. Everyone at every level has the right to sue the others if they aren’t performing their duties, like adhering to employment laws, fiduciary duty, etc.
In this way, the corporate entity protects its interests, because the non-sentient legal person’s interests are aligned with the interests of the shareholders (who are real people).
Sometimes, this system breaks down, though. The head of a company can threaten employees with retaliation if they report non-compliance with employment laws. A board can be overly sympathetic to the CEO when they make bad decisions. Shareholders can be manipulated with false information, withheld information, or a cult of personality. So, it’s entirely possible for certain bad behavior and dereliction of duty to be ignored, sometimes for a long, long time.
Legal Duties vs. Moral Imperatives
It’s up to the courts to determine whether a duty was neglected or abandoned, obviously. I’m not a lawyer, and can’t tell you exactly what might constitute a breach of fiduciary duty when it comes to the conduct of a company’s head. I do know that when it comes to Elon Musk, this issue has come up in the past, in court, but I don’t know what the outcome of that was. However, other cases for defamation (like this one) are definitely still in play, so we know that one can definitely get into legal trouble for bad behavior on social media.
It may be that Elon Musk’s right to a private life, public life outside of the companies he heads, and freedom of speech outweigh the rights of shareholders and employees who might be harmed by erratic behavior that casts the company in a bad light or reduces sales. And I agree with that idea. One’s employer really shouldn’t have the right to dictate your life outside of work. I’m not at all comfortable with the idea that the government should be aiding corporations in dominating the personal lives of workers at any level.
But, this article isn’t a court of law. It’s perfectly acceptable to get into the moral aspects of Elon Musk’s personal behavior and the effect it has on other people’s lives here. And that’s what I’m going to do.
First, let’s look at a particularly egregious example of Musk’s embarrassing and ridiculous private life that he chose to make public for some reason that I can’t imagine:
I love that Elon’s cultists are now saying that it’s not OK for his daughter to destroy him publicly like that.
As if Elon is not the one to reveal details about her personal life, which apparently were lies. She is within her rights to strike back.
After your kid destroys you… https://t.co/RhQd0UYit3 pic.twitter.com/6L1s37aGEK
— Fred Lambert (@FredericLambert) July 25, 2024
For those unaware, Elon Musk has a transgender daughter. She transitioned during the late teen years, and apparently lost his approval for this along the way (Musk claims that he was “tricked”). At age 18, she filed for a change of name to her mother’s maiden name and reportedly cut off all contact with her father. Understandably, he did not publicly discuss this situation, as most people would not want to expose their dirty laundry to public view.
In my opinion, this explains Elon Musk’s fascination with anti-transgender politics in recent years.
But, he broke silence about this issue in a rather public way recently, disclosing in an interview that he considers his child to have been “killed” by the “woke mind virus.” He later tweeted, saying that his kid was born gay and autistic, but should not be considered a woman. In response, his daughter took to social media to refute this claim, calling him an absent father, a liar, and insinuating that his use of ketamine contributed to the claims.
Regardless of who you think’s right in this dispute, it’s a dispute that most people would never bring into the public light. Not only is it embarrassing for one’s household to have this kind of drama, but it turns swaths of the public against you when you take a side. There’s also no upside, as publicly shaming his kid isn’t going to cause a change of heart and definitely isn’t going to increase the number of descendants Elon gets from her (that’s a big deal to him).
While it may be perfectly legal to sully your own reputation by airing dirty laundry in this fashion, regardless of risks to the company, employees, and shareholders, I don’t see how risking a bunch of people’s livelihoods for nothing is the morally right move. Unlike many other CEOs, he’s made himself the public face of the company, and then goes and does things like this to diminish his reputation.
He may be misguided enough to think that it’s a good idea to go public in hopes that his story will lead to laws that prevent older teens from transitioning. He might even think this helps strike a blow against the “woke mind virus” or something. But, people apply for jobs at Tesla to build cars and pay the bills, and people invest in Tesla because they want to make money and maybe further the mission to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. One thing’s for sure: none of these people signed up to lose their jobs or lose their money/retirement to spite transgender people.
Featured image by the CDC (Public Domain).
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