The inside story of Elon Musk’s mass firings of Tesla Supercharger staff

May 15 (Reuters) - The day before Elon Musk fired virtually all of Tesla’s electric-vehicle charging division last month, they had high hopes as charging chief Rebecca Tinucci went to meet with Musk about the network’s future, four former charging-network staffers told Reuters.

After Tinucci had cut between 15% and 20% of staffers two weeks earlier, part of much wider layoffs, they believed Musk would affirm plans for a massive charging-network expansion.

The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team.

Buffalox, (edited )

the company has been the biggest winner so far of $5 billion in federal funding for new chargers.

Another billionaire capitalist on social welfare sucking the federal tit.

cooljacob204,

This money really needs to come with more strings attached. Like promises not to do mass layoffs.

seaQueue,
@seaQueue@lemmy.world avatar

The money needs to come with contractual obligations and penalties for failing to deliver (for any reason) or government equity in exchange for funding.

baru,

Like promises not to do mass layoffs.

And what if that promise is broken? It shouldn’t just have promises, there should be clear consequences attached as well. Else it’ll just be a broken contract or promise. That can end up in legal stuff for ages.

AA5B, (edited )

Isn’t that what being paid in stock is meant to do? Reward him for making decisions causing the company to do well? There’s usually vesting periods and someone that high can’t just sell all at once, so it should incent him to act in the long term best interest of the company. In particular, Musk was famous for negotiating a pay package with less salary, and very aggressive targets for the company, to get stock bonuses . It should be good that it succeeded, that he met those targets

This is what I don’t get since reality is so different from the above fable. Where did it all go so wrong?

barsquid,

It’s easier to make the stock go up by committing securities fraud on Twitter than it is to actually make good products.

Makeitstop, (edited )

There are currently billions in subsidies offsetting the costs of constructing more chargers, which will bring in continuous revenue long after the construction is paid off. Continuous revenue being that thing that so many other Tesla projects are not bringing in. And the number of vehicles paying to use these chargers is about to go up as most other manufacturers recently agreed to change their standard and rely on Tesla’s charging infrastructure. And with range anxiety and the perceived lack of charging infrastructure being consistently cited as one of the main things holding people back from switching to EVs, future growth depends on increasing the availability of charging. Plus, with Tesla pushing its app on everyone who wants to use their charging network, I’m sure there’s plenty of data being gathered and sold, making it that much more valuable for them to maintain a near monopoly.

Plus, they have spent years developing a skilled team of experienced employees that know what they are doing and have relationships with all the various vendors, regulators and external stakeholders that need to be dealt with to get things done. And with the non-compete clauses Tesla likes to use having been struck down in court, and Tesla’s charging standard being released as an open standard rather than a proprietary one, anyone they lose can take all that expertise to a competitor. Like, maybe one of those other manufacturers that wants to switch to NACS, and might just want some of those subsidies to pay for chargers that will bring in long term revenue.

I mean, you’d have to be some kind of moron to fuck that up. You’d have to be the king of all morons to fuck that up over your own ego. Especially since the dispute is over how many employees with critical functions you want laid off, while at the same time you are spending money on an ad campaign to convince shareholders to approve a compensation package that costs more than all those laid off employees would have cost over the next decade or two.

My favorite comment in response to Tesla’s terrible decisions: “Man, it’s like their CEO’s on drugs or something”

Golden Goose: [Dutifully laying eggs.]

Musk: [Sharpens axe]

barsquid,

Elon is one of the dumbest and most fragile clowns on the planet. I don’t know what I’d do with billions of dollars but it would not include making sock puppet accounts to tell everyone how cool I am.

lorkano,

Lmao, and now Musk is reposting posts about Reuters lies and how the web page is dying. He is mad

garretble,
@garretble@lemmy.world avatar

It’s an interesting tactic he’s learned from the likes of trump: always say that the thing that has criticized you is dying.

noxy,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

I don’t feel like I learned anything new from this “inside story”. Just another drop in the bucket of evidence that that " pedo guy" guy ought to go away.

Geobloke,

Have to agree, no insight as to what the plan is, no deeper justification. Not even an interview with any of the people affected

Buddahriffic,

It made me realize that I’m still somehow giving that guy too much benefit of the doubt because I thought those layoffs would at least be strategic instead of just another tantrum because of a small amount of resistance to what he wanted to do.

AA5B,

For me it gave concrete facts to what we already expected, what was alluded to. Same story, more solid foundation

noxy,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

Yah that’s fair, and honestly important

athos77,

A letter sent earlier this month by a Tesla global-supply manager to Supercharger contractors and suppliers instructed them to [...] halt materials purchases [...] “I understand that this period of change may be challenging, and that patience is not easy when expecting to be paid!”

Inb4 Musk simply decides not to pay people ... :/

Ghostalmedia, (edited )
@Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world avatar

This dude was moderately holding it together before, but he’s not stable now. He throws tantrums and makes completely impulsive decisions that are not grounded in data. The board needs to push him out.

Professorozone,

Yes…or… give him a $56B raise. You know, whichever.

bitchkat,

What if it was a $56B goodbye package? Would you find that acceptable?

Peddlephile,

Not when that package is more than what the company makes.

AA5B,

It’s in stock, not cash

Professorozone,

Depends on what you mean by goodbye. Resigning from Tesla? No. Leaving the planet? I might get on board with that.

skuzz,

Kinda weird seeing what Steve Jobs would have eventually become, had he treated his cancer.

Ghostalmedia,
@Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world avatar

I feel like Howard Hughes might closer to the path Musk is on.

That guy is going to be collecting piss jars in a decade.

FrankFrankson,

Read his authorized biography he was basically already there.

afraid_of_zombies,

It’s his fault for not greenlighting iChemo earlier.

billwashere,

So long story short is Musk is a petulant child… got it.

joekar1990, (edited )

The best is they’ve already brought some members of that team back after his short sighted decision bc bp was starting to swoop in on the supercharger spots. Tesla is also heavily pushing for shareholders votes now to ratify the corporation in Texas and give Elon his massive 56b bonus package back.

9point6,

What a petulant manchild

I hope he gets acute medical complications from whatever stimulant he’s constantly on

Agrivar,

Like some form of incurable penis cancer?

(That fuckwit has spread his seed far too much already, better include the balls too)

DrWeevilJammer,
@DrWeevilJammer@lemmy.ml avatar

I suspect you jest, but most of his 11 kids were born via IVF, so…

Diplomjodler3, (edited )

If I tried really hard to do everything ass backwards and behave like a total moron, I still wouldn’t reach Muskiboi’s level.

meleecrits,
@meleecrits@lemmy.world avatar

See, you made the mistake of not being born into an ultra rich family exploiting people with their borderline slave running emerald mine.

It’s a common mistake, really.

Diplomjodler3,

Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?

baru,

Other easy option: just be rich.

breadsmasher,
@breadsmasher@lemmy.world avatar

How to become a billionaire

  1. Receive billions of tax payer money to roll out a product
  2. Stop rolling out said product
FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You forgot about:

  1. Be born in apartheid South Africa to the wealthy owner of an emerald mine.
nkat2112,
@nkat2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

That man is such a huge disappointment on so many levels. And that’s putting it really nicely.

Shirasho,

I’d prefer to call him a scam artist. He is really good at taking credit for other people’s work.

psvrh,
@psvrh@lemmy.ca avatar

That’s not a fair thing to say.

He’s also really good at stock manipulation.

homesweethomeMrL,

He also just made up big parts of his academic background. Most of us missed that efficiency-boosting strategy.

afraid_of_zombies,

There is a sales guy I work with who is like a good version of him. We work well together, he gets all the credit and deals with the clients, I get all the glory and deal with the machines.

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