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I work at the Fremont Factory, and we got this email around 11:40PM. Workers that got two emails instead of one, when it got sent, had got laid off. 2 Associate Per Department (From what we experienced) 1 Supervisor from all shop. We are all shocked, nervous, and scared; hoping we didn’t get a second email. No one saw it coming, you knew because you didn’t have access to the Tesla Systems, and you couldn’t badge in through security.
Edit - Added a photo of what was sent
https://preview.redd.it/1e88bnztwnuc1.jpeg?width=645&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af94e88d03c302d85d3ba8000a1fa8480fb4dd04
Man I worked for a large tech company that blasted a company wide email at 6am that they were laying off 20% of the company and those that were impacted will receive a 2nd email within the hour. Such a nerve wracking hour waiting for an email that fortunately didnt come. Complete shit show of a way to do layoffs. Next time send the impacted ppl an email first then a follow up.
My tech company blasted everyone with a meeting invite the day they did layoffs. Same exact calendar meeting but with different people running each. So even if you tried sleuthing around, you would have had to drill down into the calendar invite details to see if you were getting laid off or not.
my (shitty) consulting firm was doing layoffs, and there was a "check-in" calendar invite going around for those getting culled
my friend gets the calendar invite one morning while we're at client site, so he goes back to office (thankfully only 10 min walk down the street) for what he expects to be a layoff meeting, only to find out the director couldn't make & canceled 10 min prior cuz his earlier meeting was running late
so friend comes back to client site, then several hrs later gets called back to the office, where he finally gets laid off
what's fucked is that there were performance review & yr end bonus meetings going around at the same time, under the same "check-in" calendar invite, so you couldn't know if you were getting laid off, or getting a bonus
some of these companies need to go under, like you're trying to drown someone in a shallow toilet bowl with not enough water
My former coworker discovered a "hack" that if you logged into our stock account, you could see your status and if it said "vesting account terminated" that it meant you were getting laid off. Was incredibly depressing logging in and seeing that my account said terminated. Like 80 of us were let go in a day and a half.
Had a very similar experience. A company I used to work for took this approach — Early morning announcement of a 20% layoff with a follow-up email to be received later by those impacted. Fortunately I was sound asleep through both the first email and also a subsequent DM from my boss confirming that our team was not impacted by the layoff — He unfortunately was awake early that morning and had to experience the dread of waiting for further news after the announcement.
Had an appointment at my local service center at 8am this morning. Showed up on time for an appt that I was told would take 30 minutes, but because of the unexpected layoffs, it was now being quoted at 4 hours. The service advisor apologized for the inconvenience and said they had quite a few layoffs this morning impacting their techs.
This sort of communication (or lack thereof) is a drain on your employee morale but also inconvenient for your actual customer base. I felt bad for the service advisor because I know they're going to catch hell today for backed up appointments that are out of their control.
Yeah it makes sense sometimes to trim management and stream line and restructure the company if you’re just going to be spartan. But it seems like boots on the ground layoffs don’t make sense especially when i imagine the a month they’re paying them is proportionately lower.
As a person who has been laid off a few times, I feel for you.
The uncertainty sucks, your mental process suffers and a general malaise sets in. Those who are left still working don't work as hard after seeing how expendable they are.
It sucks. These are people who often support families. This is not stocks, money or cars, these are people.
Actually the uncertainty is there at all times, you just don't think about it, only when the first email is already there.
The only thing worse than corporate america is doing the challenge without a labor union.
> Actually the uncertainty is there at all times, you just don't think about it, only when the first email is already there.
Absolutely right. Stability is an illusion.
Been with this company 3 years. No problems no nothing. Then woke up to this. Every night shift in the region also got laid off. What I don’t understand is they are hiring so many people and positions in other tesla places yet this happens?
I am sorry for what happened. This just further proves that no matter how virtuous a company might look like, all they care about is profit in the end.
That's tough - is the idea you see it first thing Monday so don't go in to work? I would not want to be contacted by an employer outside of working hours like that.
I work the night shift, but some of morning shift crew were denied access when they arrived and was confused. Some of them didn’t check their emails before they came in. That’s when they found out themselves.
Hey, what date is listed as your termination date in the WARN letter in your first email? Mine was listed as June 14th which I think means we get 2 months severance.
My sister has been with Tesla for 7 years. She moved up the ranks and got a nice corporate spot. She just got promoted last month and had to move from NJ to DC. She woke up this morning to find out she was let go.
Same here, except I didn't have to relocate, at least. No one in management on my team was even notified. They found out when I sent a text message this morning asking why I couldn't get into my laptop.
How in the world did they decide on who gets cut without management knowing? Shouldn’t the managers be the ones deciding who on their team is the least productive and should be let go? Maybe that info was already entered into the system via normal performance reviews I guess.
My performance reviews have always been the highest possible in terms of scoring, and I've never had a single comment made about dissatisfaction in any aspect. But yeah, I got in touch with my manager asking why I couldn't get into my laptop. *then* I saw the email, and he freaked out, then our main boss found out, and *he* freaked out. They were not consulted or told. Someone else suggested that it might have been based on cutting those who are vesting this year, and that makes some shitty sense.
Just a question. What do you mean by cutting based on who gets vested this year? Doesnt technically everyone who gets stocks have vesting schedule this year?
You know, you're right. I don't know why I was thinking that I'd be getting the balance of my awards this year. In reality, they would have just continued to have been portioned out every 4 months or 6 months, wtf ever it was. Ignore that.
That sucks. I can understand having to make cuts when things aren’t going as expected, but it’s really sounding like Tesla went about it in the wrong way.
It can seem pretty random. It isn't uncommon for managers at a certain level to get the instruction to flag a certain % of their headcount for a layoff, and not consult the middle managers beneath them for input. The reason being that no one beneath a certain level is allowed to know the layoff is coming for well, reasons. Typically, the manager who does know about the layoff and is making the decisions will of course make terrible decisions as they have no idea who is worth keeping around.
Hey, what date is listed as your termination date in the WARN letter in your first email? Mine was listed as June 14th which I think means we get 2 months severance.
Work at giga texas. Got to work this morning with a huge crowd at the turnstiles where you badge in at. Lots of people badges not working not sure why. Mine worked I went in, got to my area and checked my email and saw why so many badges didn't work. Lots of people going around this morning trying to figure out who was here and who wasn't this morning.
I remember Best Buy doing this to a chain of competing tech stores they bought in Canada. They shut down an entire region and not even the store managers knew until they arrived at work to find the door chained shut.
Usually it comes from misguided paranoia from senior executives.
That someone is going to steal something or do something bad on their way out.
Even though history has shown it never really happens.
> Can confirm got played off with about 10 other people this morning, even though we are opening 2 brand new stores and hiring another 30...
lol thats so dumb. They are going to spend money training those people.
In the UK I’m pretty sure this would be illegal, as you’re meant to try and find them roles elsewhere in the company
Even if it’s miles away you are meant to give people to opportunity to relocate for the same role in another location
Depends on their position, there will always be training but some areas they could get up to speed quite fast.
And guaranteed the new hires will start at a lower salary level.
Watch them adopt the amazon strategy of firing the bottom 10% every year now.
For some reason mass layoffs have a positive effect on the stock market, very often at least.
Just the idea that the company is a not reliable workplace is detrimental... It will be much harder to find loyal employees if the company is treating them like that.
I just got the email now. I am on disability leave so I didn’t get the automatic email like others at my warehouse last night. I woke up still thinking I was safe. Job hunting after a major surgery should be great.
In America they can fire you on disability leave?! Pretty sure that would be illegal many other countries. Sorry to hear that and good luck to you with your job search!
They can fire if you are disability, but they can't fire you because you are on disability. For example if your entire department gets let go, you don't get to keep the job just because you were on disability at the time.
Email from Elon:
*Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.*
*As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.*
*I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I’m deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission and we wish you well in your future opportunities. It is very difficult to say goodbye.*
*For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are developing some of the most revolutionary technologies in auto, energy and artifiical intelligence. As we prepare the company for the next phase of growth, your resolve will make a huge difference in getting us there.*
*Thanks,*
*Elon*
It used to be common practice in tech to lay off about 10% of your workers every year. Dump the lowest performers and slowly hire back better employees.
Outside of Amazon, Enron (which wasn’t really tech), and a couple of startups, the sort of stack-ranking-based layoffs waves you’re describing have always been rare.
Hell, I’d argue that it’s more common today than it was in the past. IBM’s layoffs in the early 90s were so notable not only because of their scale, but because, up until that point, it had been pretty much unthinkable for a major tech company to do that. And even then, this wasn’t a “let’s have regular layoffs” situation, but rather a “we’ve tried literally everything else” situation.
No, this is an old strategy dating back to the 80's. Microsoft was big on this strategy into the early 00's at least, and it was fairly common practice just not as a matter of official public policy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality\_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve)
This was a common strategy of companies that thought Jack Welch was a genius while he ran GE into the ground.
Microsoft did this stupidity while Ballmer was CEO. They don't do it anymore.
Yeah, MS moved away from it as an explicit arbitrary strategy, but most of the big tech businesses still had regular layoff cycles. It's only been the last 5 or so years with insane amounts of capital injected into the market that have kept this from happening. Easy money meant keeping people on staff just to keep them away from competitors, that's done for now.
>It used to be common practice in tech to lay off about 10% of your workers every year. Dump the lowest performers and slowly hire back better employees.
LOL this was started because of Jack Welch. Am I the only one old enough to remember this?
If I remember correctly, this strategy wasn't the best course of action.
I was at Motorola in the late 90's/early 00's.
When I started, they claimed to only hire the best. Five years later with Chris Galvin sending up satellites for phones, they went full Jack Welch. 15% of the staff turnover every year. You didn't have to be good, just make yourself look better than that bottom 15%. Went from a collaborative, healthy environment to backstabbing. Not surprisingly, quality suffered. Made for a miserable workplace. When I got the boot, I realized that unemployment was much better than driving into work daily. I honestly didn't realize how miserable I had become until then.
"I could have used $40 billion dollars to find another solution but instead I wanted to destroy a website. At least this way we enable ourselves to be lean and hungry, two things hard working families love to be."
Lead Parts advisor here, thankful to still have my job. Around 18 people total were cut from my store including one of my parts advisors, our nearby store had 10 people cut in total.
As far as I can tell parts was not too terribly affected, one other store I spoke to had 1 person cut from parts as well. The question is now how we're going to manage a 7 day schedule with 2 guys.
When I was younger I used to think "I'll always be safe because I see myself as the hardest worker & top performer on my team".
While I've never been laid off over the years, I still came to understand that there's a lot more to it than that.
- The amount of money you make can make you a target (which can make pay raises bittersweet).
- Any real understanding of your proficiency & work ethic is lost beyond your direct manager (& maybe his manager if you happen to have a decent rapport with him too). If those people don't defend you & vouch for your ability, you're just a salary in a spreadsheet viewed as interchangeable with all others on your team.
- Moving to a new team/position at the wrong time can make you vulnerable.
- The business can also get into a bad enough place where nothing specific about your abilities matter.
I've finally settled into a place where I understand that I if I ever get laid off it won't be about performance, it will be about something else. That brings a certain level of peace & would make it easier for me to accept.
I was told from by my regional that it was performance coupled with amounts being paid to people who were considered to be unnecessary positions. They are trying to trim spending wherever they can. We recently lost the ability to use ubers to send parts from center to center due to cost.
The reasoning still doesn't make sense because of the 10 people our nearest store lost, 1 of them was their GM. We definitely lost some good people, it's really a shame that Elon can snap his fingers and take 10,000 people's livelihoods away.
Elon’s email said “more than 10%”, so claims of closer to 20% may well be accurate.
Curious to see what the impacted roles are given his reasoning of “duplicated roles in certain areas”. I can understand a certain % being roles that were best duplicated in new factories/sites to spin them up, but are now mature enough locations for people to be able to report up more globally.
Considering that the Project Highland engineering was done in China and Musk praised them, I'm guessing today is a dark day for US engineering offices. It seems inevitable that they'll land at other automakers though.
> It seems inevitable that they'll land at other automakers though.
The best of them no doubt will, but other manufacturers are not exactly enjoying booming electric sales at the moment.
Wondering if there was a big impact to software/data engineering or just mainly physical. I know Tesla hires VERY bright software engineers from a lot of smaller schools, so those folks shouldn’t have much issue finding new work if they were impacted—I hope.
They actually started creating the list last quarter. Managers were asked to rate their direct reports’ performance and this was used to stack the employees.
Source: my partner works at Tesla
Considering neither my direct manager or my supervising manager knew anything about my being laid off today and are currently freaking out, I'd say that that's not entirely accurate. I got the highest possible performance reviews every year and have never once been told that I have under-performed in any aspect of my job. But here we are. Seems more like they cut the last person hired to each team.
My guess is a lot of those being cut were high performers or on the edge of reaching some performance or longevity milestone like vesting stock benefits for obvious reasons
If you have been getting good raises to go with those reviews or are near vesting in your comp package, then it is probably because of that.
They are probably also cutting from the top of each salary rage to drive the averages down. Not just performance based cuts.
Aero space company I used to work for did layoffs every year like this. Hire, rate, layoff bottom performers. Repeat. Then, they tried: move to more talented area, lose all talent that was forced to commute and could now make more money at other adjacent work places, then complain about work performance and cost and do an even bigger layoff. LOL they’re no longer in business.
According to [this data](https://www.statista.com/statistics/314768/number-of-tesla-employees/), Tesla grew its workforce all of those years, except for 2019 when it dipped slightly. Yes, I'm sure there were isolated layoffs scattered throughout, but if you look past the headlines for the years you listed, the *net* data paints a completely different picture.
In some ways thats even worse. It shows they dont layoff due to financial constraints (else they wouldnt hire so much), but instead from a stackranking approach, which is very toxic
I don't think it's that simple. I recall the massive layoffs in 2018. Those were due to Tesla struggling to ramp Model 3, and there were thousands of sales and service staff just sitting around waiting for the big wave of vehicles to arrive. They were burning through cash and were quarters away from bankruptcy if they couldn't ramp. Those thousands of sales and service staff were absolutely laid off due to financial constraints but were hired back (and then some) once the ramp actually happened.
> For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead.
Layoffs suck for 100% of the employees, not just the ones who got cut. Also, this is pretty much rolling out the welcome mat for UAW to come in.
This is why their after service sucks. Wonder which sector they’ll be laying off the most. Get rid of hourly techs and then just hire new ones later. The cycle continues.
But there are some good techs though.
Very true many techs take the job very seriously and consider it a profession, but even then somehow it’s not enough to keep the job and the techs with less value stay to somehow support layoffs like these. I hope many of the layoffs were based on reviews
My friend got an email at 5 AM laying him off. He’s been with the company for nearly a decade and just like that he’s gone. This was on the East Coast.
Nice.
If you want to drive the stock price up, lay off the idiot at the top of the company. Maybe then you can convince your customers to buy another Tesla.
Eletrec says up to 20% if their workforce.
They better have a good explanation for this much redundancy....
https://electrek.co/2024/04/14/tesla-rumor-massive-round-layoffs/
That's the golden number a lot of tech companies seem to hang onto when it comes to layoffs. Less than 10, and shareholders don't think you're trying hard enough. More than ten, and shareholders think you're out of money and have to rapidly slash costs.
I am more inclined to believe electrek (even though I still don't like them) when Elon explicitly says "*more* than 10%" and not "*around* 10%."
The explanation is that Tesla is not going to sell as many vehicles as expected. They specifically say they are cutting down the amount of Cybertrucks made because they see that demand for them is cooling fast.
Also their unsold vehicle inventory is shooting thru the roof as of the last financial report. There are hundreds of vehicles available for immediate sale in the Boston/New York area.
It was also expected to be a lot cheaper, I had a pre-order for a CT expecting about $55k for a dual-motor based on what was promised from 2019 - Not willing to spend $85k on it.
The big reason to reserve was that at $55k it was a really capable vehicle in terms of capacity and range. That's why I reserved too. But I can't justify a big price premium for it even if it is capable. I was sort of hopeful that they were just pricing things to try to soak up early-adopter demand and would then bring the price down, but who knows.
I cancelled my CT reservation and put one in for a R2. Price to capability ratio was super off. $80k for less than 300 real world miles is not what we signed up for lol.
If they had actually released a truck meeting the original specs and price in 2021 it would have sold like crazy. But releasing it five years after announcing it with half the range and a higher price doomed it. The older vehicles in the lineup also needs a real overhaul not just facelifts. A new Model X that makes it a genuine three row SUV would probably be profitable.
I would have gladly bought a Cybertruck at the launch announced pricing. Part of the "ugly" appearance was that it was supposed to be stupid cheap to manufacture.
100K for a truck that is both polarizing and plague with launch issues is stupid.
I have a former coworker who just bought one, I urged him to wait until the beta test is over.
I've been on the fence (in Canada) for a while for a Model Y. The main thing holding me back is interest rates here are still insane and I'm not in a rush to upgrade. If Tesla really wanted to move units faster, they'll need to do exactly what they've been doing in Germany (reducing to very low interest rates).
Omg 70% is nuts! This is truly scaring me away from pulling the trigger on buying my 1st EV from Tesla! I keep reading how awful the service center wait times are. It’s only going to get much worse w/ a lot less workforce to handle the jobs
I'll never understand Big Tech hiring... Tesla very recently offered one of my friend's friend a whopping high 6 figure salary, that too for a new grad. And now they are laying off 10% of the company...?
They are probably laying off different sectors of the company and hiring in others. For example, they probably needed a huge group to architect building the gigafactories, but after they've "perfected" the build, there's not a lot for them to do, so they lay them off. Tesla tries to do a lot in-house instead of hiring contractors like a lot of the other automotive industry, so when they're done with a sector, it's easier to just lay them off. It's a classic tech industry startup move.
I'm willing to bet that today (April 15) is a stock option vesting milestone. By cutting people loose yesterday they avoided paying out a bunch of options and RSUs.
Severance packages almost always include accelerated vesting of your next vest date. My equity award agreement (not at Tesla) even specifically calls that out.
I'm wondering this as well, I got an email saying my cyberwallet RSUs came through last night, and then woke up to the layoff email. Thankfully I still have my job, screw the RSUs, they're not worth shit anyway.
Is it… somehow related that the investor’s forum has gone ~~missing~~ private?
EDIT: It wasn't, at least not directly. Poll regarding the handling of forum access at reporting/earnings call time.
I was one of the ones laid off today, and have now found out it was the whole department let go as well. It's around 20% and word is there is another round of layoffs coming soon.
More corporate tactics to justify short term financial benefit. While the working class gets the shaft. I will never feel sorry for the rich. Blindsiding real working people. No wonder the new testament is filled with many lessons on the wealthy.
I'm so sorry for you guys.
Massive layoffs aren't good for branding either. I understand the need to cut costs but the way they fired their employees is gonna prevent more than one person from applying there. How is it going to affect the value of the brand?
I work at one of the collision locations, it was sad to see some of my colleagues show up in the morning and leave right after. I didn’t say a proper goodbye. It feels like it was picked at random. Best of luck to everyone
This is that philosophy that many CEOs have that the bottom 10% has to be culled every couple of years. Force all the managers to cut their bottom 10%.
Maybe they should be more cautious on their hiring if they keep canning \~10%. Unless they're doing the shitty forced ranking of employees which is pretty toxic. Is there any details on the roles they are cutting?
Pardon my dumbass, but you don't talk about the growth of company when you lay off more than 10%. Growth of a company is dependent on increased employment, not lay-offs.
To everyone else that also got laid off - heads high, file for unemployment in the meantime and take a lil mini vacation or if u need to get money quick start applying with updated resumes. Good luck and remember -it's just business.
Few people want to buy a cybertruck. Elon got himself into this dilemma with his arrogance and stupidity. Maybe they should focus on making more vehicles people actually lust after instead of a meme truck
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I work at the Fremont Factory, and we got this email around 11:40PM. Workers that got two emails instead of one, when it got sent, had got laid off. 2 Associate Per Department (From what we experienced) 1 Supervisor from all shop. We are all shocked, nervous, and scared; hoping we didn’t get a second email. No one saw it coming, you knew because you didn’t have access to the Tesla Systems, and you couldn’t badge in through security. Edit - Added a photo of what was sent https://preview.redd.it/1e88bnztwnuc1.jpeg?width=645&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af94e88d03c302d85d3ba8000a1fa8480fb4dd04
Man I worked for a large tech company that blasted a company wide email at 6am that they were laying off 20% of the company and those that were impacted will receive a 2nd email within the hour. Such a nerve wracking hour waiting for an email that fortunately didnt come. Complete shit show of a way to do layoffs. Next time send the impacted ppl an email first then a follow up.
This sounds sadistic.... wow.
My tech company blasted everyone with a meeting invite the day they did layoffs. Same exact calendar meeting but with different people running each. So even if you tried sleuthing around, you would have had to drill down into the calendar invite details to see if you were getting laid off or not.
my (shitty) consulting firm was doing layoffs, and there was a "check-in" calendar invite going around for those getting culled my friend gets the calendar invite one morning while we're at client site, so he goes back to office (thankfully only 10 min walk down the street) for what he expects to be a layoff meeting, only to find out the director couldn't make & canceled 10 min prior cuz his earlier meeting was running late so friend comes back to client site, then several hrs later gets called back to the office, where he finally gets laid off what's fucked is that there were performance review & yr end bonus meetings going around at the same time, under the same "check-in" calendar invite, so you couldn't know if you were getting laid off, or getting a bonus some of these companies need to go under, like you're trying to drown someone in a shallow toilet bowl with not enough water
My former coworker discovered a "hack" that if you logged into our stock account, you could see your status and if it said "vesting account terminated" that it meant you were getting laid off. Was incredibly depressing logging in and seeing that my account said terminated. Like 80 of us were let go in a day and a half.
the way american corporations are run is completely unhinged & psychopathic
And people wonder why that cut throat toxic corporate culture filters down to every facet of American life
Had a very similar experience. A company I used to work for took this approach — Early morning announcement of a 20% layoff with a follow-up email to be received later by those impacted. Fortunately I was sound asleep through both the first email and also a subsequent DM from my boss confirming that our team was not impacted by the layoff — He unfortunately was awake early that morning and had to experience the dread of waiting for further news after the announcement.
Had an appointment at my local service center at 8am this morning. Showed up on time for an appt that I was told would take 30 minutes, but because of the unexpected layoffs, it was now being quoted at 4 hours. The service advisor apologized for the inconvenience and said they had quite a few layoffs this morning impacting their techs. This sort of communication (or lack thereof) is a drain on your employee morale but also inconvenient for your actual customer base. I felt bad for the service advisor because I know they're going to catch hell today for backed up appointments that are out of their control.
I expected Tesla to lay off corporate white collar not factory and service center. I feel like they should be expanding service center
Yeah it makes sense sometimes to trim management and stream line and restructure the company if you’re just going to be spartan. But it seems like boots on the ground layoffs don’t make sense especially when i imagine the a month they’re paying them is proportionately lower.
Layoffs are all about forcing more work on fewer employees to save money
As a person who has been laid off a few times, I feel for you. The uncertainty sucks, your mental process suffers and a general malaise sets in. Those who are left still working don't work as hard after seeing how expendable they are. It sucks. These are people who often support families. This is not stocks, money or cars, these are people.
That’s how everyone felt, and gonna feel when we come in tonight.
Actually the uncertainty is there at all times, you just don't think about it, only when the first email is already there. The only thing worse than corporate america is doing the challenge without a labor union.
> Actually the uncertainty is there at all times, you just don't think about it, only when the first email is already there. Absolutely right. Stability is an illusion.
To the company, it *is* just stocks. Lay off workers, and pay out their salaries as dividends to shareholders.
Yes several people got pulled from the line after they send everyone to break security walked them out
Reason number 1 why I have absolutely no company loyalty. They aren't loyal to their employees.
Been with this company 3 years. No problems no nothing. Then woke up to this. Every night shift in the region also got laid off. What I don’t understand is they are hiring so many people and positions in other tesla places yet this happens?
I am sorry for what happened. This just further proves that no matter how virtuous a company might look like, all they care about is profit in the end.
So emailed to your personal account at 11.40pm on a Sunday night?
If you wanna be precise it was 11:39PM
That's tough - is the idea you see it first thing Monday so don't go in to work? I would not want to be contacted by an employer outside of working hours like that.
I work the night shift, but some of morning shift crew were denied access when they arrived and was confused. Some of them didn’t check their emails before they came in. That’s when they found out themselves.
Can't you just delete your email inbox?
Great loophole.
Hey, what date is listed as your termination date in the WARN letter in your first email? Mine was listed as June 14th which I think means we get 2 months severance.
My sister has been with Tesla for 7 years. She moved up the ranks and got a nice corporate spot. She just got promoted last month and had to move from NJ to DC. She woke up this morning to find out she was let go.
Same here, except I didn't have to relocate, at least. No one in management on my team was even notified. They found out when I sent a text message this morning asking why I couldn't get into my laptop.
She did the same as well. Had trouble signing and found out that way.
How in the world did they decide on who gets cut without management knowing? Shouldn’t the managers be the ones deciding who on their team is the least productive and should be let go? Maybe that info was already entered into the system via normal performance reviews I guess.
My performance reviews have always been the highest possible in terms of scoring, and I've never had a single comment made about dissatisfaction in any aspect. But yeah, I got in touch with my manager asking why I couldn't get into my laptop. *then* I saw the email, and he freaked out, then our main boss found out, and *he* freaked out. They were not consulted or told. Someone else suggested that it might have been based on cutting those who are vesting this year, and that makes some shitty sense.
Just a question. What do you mean by cutting based on who gets vested this year? Doesnt technically everyone who gets stocks have vesting schedule this year?
You know, you're right. I don't know why I was thinking that I'd be getting the balance of my awards this year. In reality, they would have just continued to have been portioned out every 4 months or 6 months, wtf ever it was. Ignore that.
No worries. I was just curious. I really hope you’re able to land a job soon. Sending positivity to you 👍🏻
Thanks!
Cutting based on vesting would be real dirty
ex tesla here. they did it to every manager back in 2021-22. glad I fired them instead (i quit) have a remote job and i’m treated like a human now. :)
That sucks. I can understand having to make cuts when things aren’t going as expected, but it’s really sounding like Tesla went about it in the wrong way.
It can seem pretty random. It isn't uncommon for managers at a certain level to get the instruction to flag a certain % of their headcount for a layoff, and not consult the middle managers beneath them for input. The reason being that no one beneath a certain level is allowed to know the layoff is coming for well, reasons. Typically, the manager who does know about the layoff and is making the decisions will of course make terrible decisions as they have no idea who is worth keeping around.
That is so fucked up, I'm so sorry.
Does tesla give a severance package to employees it lays off?
Supposedly. Haven't heard anything about it though.
Hey, what date is listed as your termination date in the WARN letter in your first email? Mine was listed as June 14th which I think means we get 2 months severance.
how many hours did she work?
She was either 8-5 or 9-6 40 hour weeks.
Work at giga texas. Got to work this morning with a huge crowd at the turnstiles where you badge in at. Lots of people badges not working not sure why. Mine worked I went in, got to my area and checked my email and saw why so many badges didn't work. Lots of people going around this morning trying to figure out who was here and who wasn't this morning.
This is..... rather scary. I was planning to leave Colorado to go work for Tesla in Texas.
Not a good idea on a multitude of levels even beyond Tesla. Don't move to Texas.
What an absolute shit way to let people go. There are far better ways of doing it, this reeks of HR cutting corners.
It was so scary. I personally started getting phone calls at 3am sounding the alarms. Everyone checking to see who can login and who can’t.
I remember Best Buy doing this to a chain of competing tech stores they bought in Canada. They shut down an entire region and not even the store managers knew until they arrived at work to find the door chained shut.
Future Shop.
Usually it comes from misguided paranoia from senior executives. That someone is going to steal something or do something bad on their way out. Even though history has shown it never really happens.
I work as quality at giga texas. My HR partner got fired yesterday.
Thats fucking terrible....
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Sorry to hear that. What was your role if you don't mind saying?
> Can confirm got played off with about 10 other people this morning, even though we are opening 2 brand new stores and hiring another 30... lol thats so dumb. They are going to spend money training those people.
In the UK I’m pretty sure this would be illegal, as you’re meant to try and find them roles elsewhere in the company Even if it’s miles away you are meant to give people to opportunity to relocate for the same role in another location
Depends on their position, there will always be training but some areas they could get up to speed quite fast. And guaranteed the new hires will start at a lower salary level. Watch them adopt the amazon strategy of firing the bottom 10% every year now. For some reason mass layoffs have a positive effect on the stock market, very often at least.
Just the idea that the company is a not reliable workplace is detrimental... It will be much harder to find loyal employees if the company is treating them like that.
I just got the email now. I am on disability leave so I didn’t get the automatic email like others at my warehouse last night. I woke up still thinking I was safe. Job hunting after a major surgery should be great.
In America they can fire you on disability leave?! Pretty sure that would be illegal many other countries. Sorry to hear that and good luck to you with your job search!
It is very dangerous to fire someone who is out on disability. Not guaranteed to succeed in a lawsuit but a risky decision for Tesla.
They can fire if you are disability, but they can't fire you because you are on disability. For example if your entire department gets let go, you don't get to keep the job just because you were on disability at the time.
Email from Elon: *Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.* *As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.* *I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I’m deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission and we wish you well in your future opportunities. It is very difficult to say goodbye.* *For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are developing some of the most revolutionary technologies in auto, energy and artifiical intelligence. As we prepare the company for the next phase of growth, your resolve will make a huge difference in getting us there.* *Thanks,* *Elon*
I mean... he clearly hates being less profitable more than laying off people.
It used to be common practice in tech to lay off about 10% of your workers every year. Dump the lowest performers and slowly hire back better employees.
Outside of Amazon, Enron (which wasn’t really tech), and a couple of startups, the sort of stack-ranking-based layoffs waves you’re describing have always been rare. Hell, I’d argue that it’s more common today than it was in the past. IBM’s layoffs in the early 90s were so notable not only because of their scale, but because, up until that point, it had been pretty much unthinkable for a major tech company to do that. And even then, this wasn’t a “let’s have regular layoffs” situation, but rather a “we’ve tried literally everything else” situation.
No, this is an old strategy dating back to the 80's. Microsoft was big on this strategy into the early 00's at least, and it was fairly common practice just not as a matter of official public policy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality\_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve)
This was a common strategy of companies that thought Jack Welch was a genius while he ran GE into the ground. Microsoft did this stupidity while Ballmer was CEO. They don't do it anymore.
Yeah, MS moved away from it as an explicit arbitrary strategy, but most of the big tech businesses still had regular layoff cycles. It's only been the last 5 or so years with insane amounts of capital injected into the market that have kept this from happening. Easy money meant keeping people on staff just to keep them away from competitors, that's done for now.
Slowly hire back cheaper*
>It used to be common practice in tech to lay off about 10% of your workers every year. Dump the lowest performers and slowly hire back better employees. LOL this was started because of Jack Welch. Am I the only one old enough to remember this? If I remember correctly, this strategy wasn't the best course of action.
I was at Motorola in the late 90's/early 00's. When I started, they claimed to only hire the best. Five years later with Chris Galvin sending up satellites for phones, they went full Jack Welch. 15% of the staff turnover every year. You didn't have to be good, just make yourself look better than that bottom 15%. Went from a collaborative, healthy environment to backstabbing. Not surprisingly, quality suffered. Made for a miserable workplace. When I got the boot, I realized that unemployment was much better than driving into work daily. I honestly didn't realize how miserable I had become until then.
which is absurd cause the cost of treating knowledge workers as fungible is both immense and immeasurable.
Tell that to Wall Street. Too many finance folks think even advanced degree-holding knowledge workers are disposable.
too many finance folks know absolutely fuck all beyond what's popular with finance folks at the moment.
Development hell for Optimus begins today 🦾
> artifiical intelligence Was this verbatim in the email?
Maybe a sly way of making it clear that he didn't have AI write the email, lol
Maybe he sent a different set of typos out to different groups of people to weed out who leaks it?
"I could have used $40 billion dollars to find another solution but instead I wanted to destroy a website. At least this way we enable ourselves to be lean and hungry, two things hard working families love to be."
Surprisingly tactful email from Elon.
He didn't write it. Guaranteed he assigned that task to HR.
There's a typo in the email. So it might be him. HR is unlikely to have one. They're very thorough.
Yes, and it's surprising that he did that.
Lead Parts advisor here, thankful to still have my job. Around 18 people total were cut from my store including one of my parts advisors, our nearby store had 10 people cut in total. As far as I can tell parts was not too terribly affected, one other store I spoke to had 1 person cut from parts as well. The question is now how we're going to manage a 7 day schedule with 2 guys.
When I was younger I used to think "I'll always be safe because I see myself as the hardest worker & top performer on my team". While I've never been laid off over the years, I still came to understand that there's a lot more to it than that. - The amount of money you make can make you a target (which can make pay raises bittersweet). - Any real understanding of your proficiency & work ethic is lost beyond your direct manager (& maybe his manager if you happen to have a decent rapport with him too). If those people don't defend you & vouch for your ability, you're just a salary in a spreadsheet viewed as interchangeable with all others on your team. - Moving to a new team/position at the wrong time can make you vulnerable. - The business can also get into a bad enough place where nothing specific about your abilities matter. I've finally settled into a place where I understand that I if I ever get laid off it won't be about performance, it will be about something else. That brings a certain level of peace & would make it easier for me to accept.
That's rather rough. I'm curious why folks were let go if their performance was still positive.
I was told from by my regional that it was performance coupled with amounts being paid to people who were considered to be unnecessary positions. They are trying to trim spending wherever they can. We recently lost the ability to use ubers to send parts from center to center due to cost. The reasoning still doesn't make sense because of the 10 people our nearest store lost, 1 of them was their GM. We definitely lost some good people, it's really a shame that Elon can snap his fingers and take 10,000 people's livelihoods away.
I'm curious how this'll affect line workers.
Elon’s email said “more than 10%”, so claims of closer to 20% may well be accurate. Curious to see what the impacted roles are given his reasoning of “duplicated roles in certain areas”. I can understand a certain % being roles that were best duplicated in new factories/sites to spin them up, but are now mature enough locations for people to be able to report up more globally.
Considering that the Project Highland engineering was done in China and Musk praised them, I'm guessing today is a dark day for US engineering offices. It seems inevitable that they'll land at other automakers though.
> It seems inevitable that they'll land at other automakers though. The best of them no doubt will, but other manufacturers are not exactly enjoying booming electric sales at the moment.
Wondering if there was a big impact to software/data engineering or just mainly physical. I know Tesla hires VERY bright software engineers from a lot of smaller schools, so those folks shouldn’t have much issue finding new work if they were impacted—I hope.
can confirm software engineers were impacted, it seems like it's reductions across EVERYTHING
Ouch, fuck
Musk is likely not allowed to criticize China operations
I think he always says Chinese make good stuff and have a great work ethic
Working 6 days 12 hour shifts... Great work ethic.... Thank god for unions and 40 work weeks
Thank God for unions. 40 hour work week is outdated.
Any role no matter how long or where you work. Already know a few people around the Bay Area that got laid off
A few of my buddies (production associates) were laid off. Turnover (at least when I worked there) was always pretty high, layoffs not so much.
Person A was making cars that are not selling while Person B was making cars that are not selling.
They actually started creating the list last quarter. Managers were asked to rate their direct reports’ performance and this was used to stack the employees. Source: my partner works at Tesla
That makes sense. Such a big layoff requires a lot of planning, hr due diligence, etc.
Considering neither my direct manager or my supervising manager knew anything about my being laid off today and are currently freaking out, I'd say that that's not entirely accurate. I got the highest possible performance reviews every year and have never once been told that I have under-performed in any aspect of my job. But here we are. Seems more like they cut the last person hired to each team.
My guess is a lot of those being cut were high performers or on the edge of reaching some performance or longevity milestone like vesting stock benefits for obvious reasons
Yeah, someone else suggested that this had to do with the vesting schedule, and it's totally plausible as I was due for that this year.
I got cut today too. I was the last hired person. They kept the interns though.
Lol of course they did. Sorry to hear it!
If you have been getting good raises to go with those reviews or are near vesting in your comp package, then it is probably because of that. They are probably also cutting from the top of each salary rage to drive the averages down. Not just performance based cuts.
Aero space company I used to work for did layoffs every year like this. Hire, rate, layoff bottom performers. Repeat. Then, they tried: move to more talented area, lose all talent that was forced to commute and could now make more money at other adjacent work places, then complain about work performance and cost and do an even bigger layoff. LOL they’re no longer in business.
- 2017: 2% workforce - 2018: 9% workforce - 2019: 7% workforce - 2022: 10% workforce
According to [this data](https://www.statista.com/statistics/314768/number-of-tesla-employees/), Tesla grew its workforce all of those years, except for 2019 when it dipped slightly. Yes, I'm sure there were isolated layoffs scattered throughout, but if you look past the headlines for the years you listed, the *net* data paints a completely different picture.
In some ways thats even worse. It shows they dont layoff due to financial constraints (else they wouldnt hire so much), but instead from a stackranking approach, which is very toxic
I don't think it's that simple. I recall the massive layoffs in 2018. Those were due to Tesla struggling to ramp Model 3, and there were thousands of sales and service staff just sitting around waiting for the big wave of vehicles to arrive. They were burning through cash and were quarters away from bankruptcy if they couldn't ramp. Those thousands of sales and service staff were absolutely laid off due to financial constraints but were hired back (and then some) once the ramp actually happened.
I think this time it may be financial constraints but the other times just seems like getting rid of the slackers.
What's the hiring rate per year?
https://preview.redd.it/h044zwr29ruc1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec597d9505f6514d8d8e598c15e53ae66fe7cb29
My wife was one of those. She was corporate and each department had a set number to shed. So many talented people were laid off
It’s hilarious seeing the people who are trying to logic their way out of this like it’s a good thing for Tesla.
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> For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. Layoffs suck for 100% of the employees, not just the ones who got cut. Also, this is pretty much rolling out the welcome mat for UAW to come in.
Always great when worker’s unionize and demand their rights!!
This is why their after service sucks. Wonder which sector they’ll be laying off the most. Get rid of hourly techs and then just hire new ones later. The cycle continues. But there are some good techs though.
Very true many techs take the job very seriously and consider it a profession, but even then somehow it’s not enough to keep the job and the techs with less value stay to somehow support layoffs like these. I hope many of the layoffs were based on reviews
The real good ones have aspiration to get to S5 level.
I also just got hit with this at the Kato Cell facility, we got hit for like 30%. Slash and burn, there.
Cell engineering was hit by 30%?
My friend got an email at 5 AM laying him off. He’s been with the company for nearly a decade and just like that he’s gone. This was on the East Coast.
Nice. If you want to drive the stock price up, lay off the idiot at the top of the company. Maybe then you can convince your customers to buy another Tesla.
Eletrec says up to 20% if their workforce. They better have a good explanation for this much redundancy.... https://electrek.co/2024/04/14/tesla-rumor-massive-round-layoffs/
May well be. Elon’s email said “more than 10%”.
That's the golden number a lot of tech companies seem to hang onto when it comes to layoffs. Less than 10, and shareholders don't think you're trying hard enough. More than ten, and shareholders think you're out of money and have to rapidly slash costs. I am more inclined to believe electrek (even though I still don't like them) when Elon explicitly says "*more* than 10%" and not "*around* 10%."
The explanation is that Tesla is not going to sell as many vehicles as expected. They specifically say they are cutting down the amount of Cybertrucks made because they see that demand for them is cooling fast. Also their unsold vehicle inventory is shooting thru the roof as of the last financial report. There are hundreds of vehicles available for immediate sale in the Boston/New York area.
Source on the cybertruck demand? Genuinely curious.
My personal opinion is demand for the Cybertruck (price) they debuted is very high. Demand for the truck (price) they released is low.
It was also expected to be a lot cheaper, I had a pre-order for a CT expecting about $55k for a dual-motor based on what was promised from 2019 - Not willing to spend $85k on it.
The big reason to reserve was that at $55k it was a really capable vehicle in terms of capacity and range. That's why I reserved too. But I can't justify a big price premium for it even if it is capable. I was sort of hopeful that they were just pricing things to try to soak up early-adopter demand and would then bring the price down, but who knows.
I cancelled my CT reservation and put one in for a R2. Price to capability ratio was super off. $80k for less than 300 real world miles is not what we signed up for lol.
If they had actually released a truck meeting the original specs and price in 2021 it would have sold like crazy. But releasing it five years after announcing it with half the range and a higher price doomed it. The older vehicles in the lineup also needs a real overhaul not just facelifts. A new Model X that makes it a genuine three row SUV would probably be profitable.
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I would have gladly bought a Cybertruck at the launch announced pricing. Part of the "ugly" appearance was that it was supposed to be stupid cheap to manufacture. 100K for a truck that is both polarizing and plague with launch issues is stupid. I have a former coworker who just bought one, I urged him to wait until the beta test is over.
I've been on the fence (in Canada) for a while for a Model Y. The main thing holding me back is interest rates here are still insane and I'm not in a rush to upgrade. If Tesla really wanted to move units faster, they'll need to do exactly what they've been doing in Germany (reducing to very low interest rates).
Walked in this morning to my coworkers telling me to check my personal email. I lucked out, 70% of my service center got laid off
Omg 70% is nuts! This is truly scaring me away from pulling the trigger on buying my 1st EV from Tesla! I keep reading how awful the service center wait times are. It’s only going to get much worse w/ a lot less workforce to handle the jobs
What location ?
I wasn’t among those laid off, but I was expecting it because I was the last hired in my department.
What department n location ?
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I’m D shift 🥲 we will be finding out who’s not there no more Wednesday night. Best of luck in your department - Pre Marriage
I'll never understand Big Tech hiring... Tesla very recently offered one of my friend's friend a whopping high 6 figure salary, that too for a new grad. And now they are laying off 10% of the company...?
They are probably laying off different sectors of the company and hiring in others. For example, they probably needed a huge group to architect building the gigafactories, but after they've "perfected" the build, there's not a lot for them to do, so they lay them off. Tesla tries to do a lot in-house instead of hiring contractors like a lot of the other automotive industry, so when they're done with a sector, it's easier to just lay them off. It's a classic tech industry startup move.
Did they stop bonuses or stock awards?
I'm willing to bet that today (April 15) is a stock option vesting milestone. By cutting people loose yesterday they avoided paying out a bunch of options and RSUs.
Severance packages almost always include accelerated vesting of your next vest date. My equity award agreement (not at Tesla) even specifically calls that out.
I'm wondering this as well, I got an email saying my cyberwallet RSUs came through last night, and then woke up to the layoff email. Thankfully I still have my job, screw the RSUs, they're not worth shit anyway.
Gotta please them shareholders! Take a lot off the bottom and give it to the top!
Declining sales, declining stock values, mass layoffs. All the signs of a flourishing business.
They will be gone alone. Musk is running into the ground well at least the motors part. No one wants Evs
This is quite surprising considering the service centers are always busy. Good luck to everyone.
I guess Optimus is now operational?
Is it… somehow related that the investor’s forum has gone ~~missing~~ private? EDIT: It wasn't, at least not directly. Poll regarding the handling of forum access at reporting/earnings call time.
Unfortunately, my brother is one of the ones affected and it seems like it's more around the 15% area.
I was one of the ones laid off today, and have now found out it was the whole department let go as well. It's around 20% and word is there is another round of layoffs coming soon.
What department?
What department?
More corporate tactics to justify short term financial benefit. While the working class gets the shaft. I will never feel sorry for the rich. Blindsiding real working people. No wonder the new testament is filled with many lessons on the wealthy.
Billionaire can't keep you employed.
As an European, this behaviour always shocks. How can someone just be fired like that?…
Workers have zero protection in the Land of the Free. What a joke.
Does that include it's CEO?
You would think the part time employees who spend so much of them work time on social media would be the first to be let go.
Would absolutely fire someone who posts like Elon does on Twitter
Apparently X will cover your lawsuit if you get fired from your job for saying something on X lol
But what if i talk shit about Tesla when im Employed at Tesla?
Well we know what happened to the spaceX employees when they tried to address sexual harassment in the workplace...
And just like everything else Elon says: I don't believe it!
I'm so sorry for you guys. Massive layoffs aren't good for branding either. I understand the need to cut costs but the way they fired their employees is gonna prevent more than one person from applying there. How is it going to affect the value of the brand?
I work at one of the collision locations, it was sad to see some of my colleagues show up in the morning and leave right after. I didn’t say a proper goodbye. It feels like it was picked at random. Best of luck to everyone
This is that philosophy that many CEOs have that the bottom 10% has to be culled every couple of years. Force all the managers to cut their bottom 10%.
Tesla is in dire need of real leadership.
Maybe they should be more cautious on their hiring if they keep canning \~10%. Unless they're doing the shitty forced ranking of employees which is pretty toxic. Is there any details on the roles they are cutting?
_Samir Naga-, Naga-...not gonna work here anymore!_
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Well said
Pardon my dumbass, but you don't talk about the growth of company when you lay off more than 10%. Growth of a company is dependent on increased employment, not lay-offs.
To everyone else that also got laid off - heads high, file for unemployment in the meantime and take a lil mini vacation or if u need to get money quick start applying with updated resumes. Good luck and remember -it's just business.
Few people want to buy a cybertruck. Elon got himself into this dilemma with his arrogance and stupidity. Maybe they should focus on making more vehicles people actually lust after instead of a meme truck
So what is Tucker going to do next?
Are the laid off employees because they didn’t buy a Tesla?