Elon Musk could face expulsion from the historic Royal Society scientific institution after the group agreed to call a meeting to discuss Fellows’ behaviors following a revolt from scientists.
The institution, which was founded in 1660, plans to hold a meeting on March 3 to debate “principles around public pronouncements and behaviours of Fellows,” a spokesperson told Fortune in a statement. It followed several resignations and thousands of signatures calling out the behavior of fellow member Musk.
"Any issues raised in respect of individual Fellows are dealt with in strict confidence."
The announcement comes after more than 2,700 scientists signed an open letter, penned by biologist Stephen Curry, accusing Musk of breaching the society’s code of conduct.
Curry pointed to Musk’s peddling of conspiracy theories and online attacks on Dr Anthony Fauci, in addition to his labeling of U.K. Parliament member Jess Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist,” as evidence of this breach of conduct. He also cited Musk’s steering of DOGE in the U.S. and its impact on science.
“The situation is rendered more serious because Mr. Musk now occupies a position within a Trump administration in the USA that has over the past several weeks engaged in an assault on scientific research in the U.S. that has fallen foul of federal courts,” said Curry.
Musk was appointed a Fellow in 2018 in recognition of his work as CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company.
In the years since, though, Musk’s public image has shifted through his acquisition of Twitter, which he renamed X. The world’s richest person has grown more political, supporting right-wing causes across Europe while playing a crucial role in the election of Donald Trump.
Musk’s proclamations have caused disquiet in society for several months. In November, Professor Dorothy Bishop, a University of Oxford psychologist, resigned from her position as a Fellow of the Royal Society in protest of Musk’s behavior.
Bishop said she refused to be associated with an institution that called Musk a member, who she said was modeling himself on a “Bond villain.”
“I just feel far more comfortable to be dissociated from an institution that continues to honour this disreputable man,” she wrote.
Last week, Andrew Miller, a biologist at the University of Edinburgh, also resigned, citing the society’s “inability to take proportionate action on Elon Musk’s current promotion of disinformation and attacks on evidence-based policies and science advice.”
The society is the U.K.’s oldest scientific academy, and in the past counted Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Charles Darwin among its members. Current members include Sir James Dyson and Sir David Attenborough.
Candidates face a highly competitive process to achieve a Royal Society Fellowship. In order to be considered, a candidate must receive a nomination from two existing Fellows. Last year, there were 650 people under consideration for a Fellowship and a further 100 up for foreign membership.
The society hasn’t expelled a member in more than 150 years, when Rudolf Eric Raspe was removed due to fraud.
Any decision to remove Musk could be regarded as deeply political and potentially damaging to the institution, which risks falling into a culture war that has engulfed many of Musk’s antagonists in recent years.
The Times reported the comments of one Fellow, speaking on the condition of anonymity, who said: “I don’t like what Musk is doing—it’s reprehensible. But I also think he’s an astounding person in terms of what he has contributed to engineering. The society would be hypocritical if it singled out and censured one person for things they have said and done. You open the doors to charges of hypocrisy if you go down this road.”
