Pressure is growing on the Royal Society to expel Elon Musk from its fellowship after more than a thousand scientists signed an open letter expressing dismay at its lack of action on the matter.
Musk, who owns the social media platform X, leads the US “department of government efficiency” (Doge). He was elected a fellow of the UK’s national academy of sciences in 2018 as a result of his work and impact in the space and electric vehicle industries.
However, the Royal Society is under mounting pressure to revoke the honour.
In August, the Guardian revealed a number of fellows had written to the Royal Society expressing concern over Musk’s comments regarding unrest in the UK and calling for him to be stripped of his fellowship.
Prof Dorothy Bishop, a leading expert on children’s communication disorders at the University of Oxford, subsequently resigned her fellowship because of a lack of action by the Royal Society, with Andrew Millar, a professor of systems biology at the University of Edinburgh, following suit this week, as first reported by Research Professional News.
More than 1,700 members of the international scientific community have signed an open letter to the president of the Royal Society, Sir Adrian Smith, with signatories including Bishop, Sir Richard Peto – an eminent statistician and Royal Society fellow – and Prof Susan Michie of UCL, a behavioural scientist who became a household name during the Covid pandemic.
Stephen Curry, an emeritus professor of structural biology at Imperial College London, said he was motivated to write the letter out of frustration at the organisation’s continued silence.
“This isn’t an HR complaint about harassment or bullying or anything like that. This is a matter of behaviour that is entirely public,” he said. “Everybody can see what Musk has said and what he’s doing as head of Doge, and the Royal Society, which claims to have a strong voice for science within the UK, but actually, even on the international stage, has said absolutely nothing.”
The letter notes the Royal Society was made aware of fellows’ concerns more than six months ago, and that since then Musk has made further incendiary comments.
These include calling the MP Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, a “rape genocide apologist”. Phillips has said the comments made her more worried about her safety.
“I am at a loss to understand how these actions are consistent with a code of conduct that requires fellows to have ‘due regard for the statement of values developed from time to time by [the Royal] Society’,” Curry writes.
The letter states the situation is rendered more serious because of Musk’s new position within a Trump administration that, Curry writes, “has over the past several weeks engaged in an assault on scientific research in the US that has fallen foul of federal courts”, noting that concerns have also been raised over censorship, particularly in the realm of climate science.
The letter adds that the lack of comment by the Royal Society about Musk’s fellowship, other than its reiteration that concerns around individual fellows are dealt with in strict confidence, “increasingly looks like a failure of moral courage”.
Curry said he hopes the letter, as well as the recent resignations, would highlight to the Royal Society the breadth and depth of feeling within the scientific community about Musk’s fellowship.
“If they believe at all in the values that they espouse in their code of conduct, then they really have to come out and explain to people why is it that they think that Musk’s behaviour is consistent with [them],” he said.
The Guardian understands there is to be a meeting of the Fellowship of the Royal Society on 3 March to discuss the principles around public pronouncements and behaviour of fellows.
A spokesperson for the Royal Society said: “In the event of any concerns raised about the behaviour of a fellow, the Society has a clear set of processes described in our code of conduct, which is published on our website along with relevant disciplinary regulations. Any issues raised in respect of individual fellows are dealt with in strict confidence.’’
