Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin reportedly fired a longtime senior executive over allegations of inappropriate behavior in the workplace

• Blue Origin fired a senior executive in 2019 over allegations of inappropriate behavior, per The Washington Post.
• One former employee told The Post that the exec embarrassed her in front of others in a meeting.
• It follows former and current Blue Origin staff writing about the company's alleged sexist work culture.

Jeff Bezos' spaceflight firm, Blue Origin, fired a longtime senior executive over allegations of inappropriate behavior in the workplace, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Blue Origin hired a law firm to investigate Walt McCleery, the company's vice president of recruiting, three people familiar with the situations told The Post. The law firm, called Perkins Coie, found that McCleery's behavior was inappropriate in the workplace, according to The Post. Officials in Bezos' company, who requested to remain anonymous, told the publication that Blue Origin hired the law firm and then fired McCleery.

McCleery worked at Blue Origin from 2004 to 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile. He now works at SpinLaunch as vice president of talent acquisition. SpinLaunch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The news comes the same day as a group of 21 former and current Blue Origin employees wrote an open letter accusing the company of sacrificing safety in an effort to win the billionaire space race, and fostering a toxic and sexist work culture. Blue Origin and McCleery didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comments on McCleery. When the letter was initially released, the space company told Insider that Blue Origin does not tolerate harassment in its workplace and was actively investigating the claims.

One former Blue Origin employee, who didn't sign the open letter, told The Post that she was in a meeting with McCleery when he said to executives from an outside company: "I apologize for [her] being emotional. It must be her time of the month."

The former staff member described the incident to The Post as "tough," adding that she quit her job "because I couldn't take it anymore."

McCleery told The Post that he was unaware of the open letter and denied the allegations. "Not true as far as I'm concerned," he told The Post, which is owned by Bezos.

"It doesn't matter how it came to an end. That's private. That's my information," he told The Post in regards to his exit from Blue Origin.

The open letter, written by employees who remained anonymous apart from Alexandra Abrams, the former head of Blue Origin employee communications, didn't disclose any names, but said numerous executives had been accused of demeaning female Blue Origin staff.

The letter described an example of one senior executive in CEO Bob Smith's inner circle being promoted despite having multiple sexual harassment reports.

Another unnamed executive often called women derogatory words like "baby girl" and "baby doll," the letter said. Abrams told CBS that employees' concerns over safety and harassment in the workplace were consistently overlooked. Though, she said the company eventually fired one of the executives cited in the letter after he groped a colleague.

The letter also said female workers at Blue Origin often warned each other to stay away from these executives and pointed to a workplace that lacked gender parity.

"If this company's culture and work environment are a template for the future Jeff Bezos envisions, we are headed in a direction that reflects the worst of the world we live in now, and sorely needs to change," the letter said.

On Friday, CNBC reported Blue Origin's CEO sent employees a mass email responding to the allegations. Smith sought to "reassure" staff that the company does not tolerate harassment.

"It is particularly difficult and painful, for me, to hear claims being levied that attempt to characterize our entire team in a way that doesn't align with the character and capability that I see at Blue Origin every day," Smith wrote.