Tesla Reportedly Lays Off Recent Hires and Rescinds Job Offers
Tesla is letting go of employees who started just weeks ago and withdrawing pending job offers. Newly affected workers dispute the company's claim that the cuts are based on performance reviews.
Tesla is following through on previously announced workforce reductions by laying off recent hires and rescinding employment offers. Affected individuals take to social media to share their experiences, including one manager who starts this year and a recruiter who loses his job after just two weeks. Some recent college graduates also report that their promised full-time positions vanish before they even begin.
The automaker claims that the layoffs, which reportedly number in the hundreds, are based on performance reviews. However, newly terminated employees dispute this reasoning, noting that they have not been at the company long enough to receive formal evaluations or set performance goals. One laid-off worker states that Tesla refuses to explain the metrics behind the decision and pressures him to accept a severance package by threatening to cancel his medical insurance.
These cuts coincide with significant financial strain on the company, as Elon Musk describes the new Texas and Germany plants as "gigantic money furnaces" that lose billions of dollars. Musk points to ongoing supply-chain interruptions and recent COVID shutdowns in China as major obstacles to keeping factories operating. Meanwhile, former employees are taking legal action, filing lawsuits earlier this month that accuse Tesla of violating federal law by executing hundreds of layoffs on short notice.