Pressure grows on Royal community To expel El Musk from a fellowship after more than a thousand worlds signed Open message Expressing panic from its lack of work in this regard.
Musk, who owns the social media platform X, leads the United States, the Ministry of Governmental efficiency (DOGE). He was A colleague elected Among the National Academy of Sciences in the United Kingdom in 2018 as a result of its work and its impact on the space industries and electric cars.
However, the Royal community Under the escalating pressure to cancel honor.
In August, and The guardian revealed A number of colleagues wrote to the Royal Society, expressing their concern about Musk’s comments about the unrest in the United Kingdom and invited him to strip his fellowship.
Professor Dorothy Bishop, the leading expert in children’s communication disorders at Oxford University, then A fellowship for her Because of the lack of work by the royal society, with Andrew MilarProfessor of Systems Biology at Edinburgh University, after the example.
More than 1700 members of the international scientific community They signed an open message To the President of the Royal Society, Sir Adrian Smith, with the two signatories including the bishop, Sir Richard Beto – a colleague in the statistical and prominent royal community – and Professor Susan Mishi from the University of California in Los Angeles, a behavior scientist who has become a familiar name during the Covid.
Stephen Carey, an honorary professor of structural biology at the Imperial College College in London, said he was excited to write the letter out of frustration in the continuous silence of the organization.
“This is not a complaint of human resources about harassment, bullying, or anything like that. This is a matter of completely public behavior.” “Everyone can see what Musk said and what he is doing as President Doug, and the Royal Society, which claims to have a strong voice of science within the United Kingdom, but in reality, even on the international stage, he has never said anything.”
The message indicates that the Royal Society was aware of the fears of colleagues for more than six months, and since then Musk has made more incendiary comments.
These include Summoning Representative Jess PhillipsMinister of Protection and Violence against Women and Girls, “defender of genocide for rape.” Phillips said the comments made her more worried about her safety.
“I am confused to understand how these procedures are consistent with the Code of Conduct that requires colleagues” pay the attention to show the values that were developed from time to time. [the Royal] Society “,” writes Carrie.
The message indicates that the situation has become more serious because of the new Musk position within the Trump administration, as Carrie wrote, “For the past few weeks, he has participated in an attack on scientific research in the United States that has fallen into a mistake in federal courts”, with reference to as raised Fears due to censorship, especially in the field of climate science.
The letter adds that the lack of comment by the Royal Society about the Musk Fellowship, unlike its repetition that concerns about individual colleagues are dealt with with strict confidence, “it seems that it has failed in the moral courage.”
Carrie said he hoped to highlight the message, as well as the recent resignations, in the Royal Society, the expansion and depth of the feeling within the scientific community about Musk’s fellowship.
“If they believe in the values they adopt in the code of their rules of behavior, they must go out and explain to people why they believe that the behavior of musk is consistent [them]He said.
The Guardian realizes that there should be a meeting of the Royal Assembly of March 3 to discuss principles on general statements and colleagues’ behavior.
A spokesman for the Royal Society said: “In the event of any concerns raised about the behavior of a colleague, the community has a clear set of operations described in our code of conductIt is published on our site along with relevant disciplinary regulations. Any issues that arouse in relation to individual colleagues are dealt with with strict confidence. “
