In the political world, the dreaded flip-flop could be considered career suicide. In the auto industry, it’s not so dangerous to change one’s mind. That seems to have happened in the halls of Tesla this week, as the company has reportedly moved to rehire certain staff that were shown the door in recent layoffs.
Tesla’s Supercharger network is considered one of the best in the world. It’s so much better than rival networks that it inspired most other automakers to adopt the NACS charging port in the US. When reports came out last month that CEO Elon Musk had laid off almost the entire team of 500 employees responsible for the Supercharging network, it left the industry shook. A great many companies have pinned their fortunes to this network, and it seemed Tesla had put it in great jeopardy.
Now, it seems that Tesla may be correcting that rash maneuver. Bloomberg reports that key figures from the Supercharing team are returning to the company.
Max de Zegher, Tesla’s former director of charging for North America, is reportedly among them, according to unnamed sources. An uncertain number of other employees will return as well. However, former head of the Supercharging division, Rebecca Tinucci, will apparently not be rejoining the company. The losses to the Supercharging department came amidst broader layoffs at Tesla, with reports the company hoped to slash staff numbers by at least 10%.
In the wake of the layoffs, Musk committed to invest $500 million in expanding the Supercharger network this year. However, questions still remain about the company’s commitments to existing plans. Just this month, Reuters shared reports that Tesla had potentially pulled out of certain projects, with other charging networks getting calls to pick up the slack. ETFM noted that Supercharger rollouts in Australia had instantly ground to a halt after the staff cuts.
Fundamentally, it all comes down to money. Tesla is making big moves right now to try and shore up its finances. In its Q1 report, Tesla noted its operating margins were down to 5.5 percent, compared to 11.4 percent just a year ago. Vehicle deliveries are down too, which might be why Tesla is cutting hot deals to get customers into a Model Y right now. Wage bills are expensive ongoing costs, and slashing them could give the automaker some breathing room as it tries to right the ship. At the same time, lost staff take their experience with them, and it can be costly and time-consuming to get that back.
It’s no surprise that Tesla has backtracked somewhat in this regard. There are over 50,000 stations in the global Supercharger network, and somebody needs to keep the lights on. Bringing key members of the old staff back is the easiest way to do that. It mirrors the move that Musk made with Twitter last year, rehiring a bunch of staff who were let go after his tumultuous takeover of the social media company.
As the storm rages, consider pouring a stiff drink for the auto executives in your life. If they’re going to have a coronary this year, it’s probably because they invested billions in switching over to the NACS charging standard. That’s not quite as safe a bet now as it was 12 months ago.
Image credits: Tesla
It’s a power move. It’s his way of reminding all Tesla employees that he controls their livelihoods.
I wonder if these guys nudged their views on unions at least a bit or they still think they are “smarter” for negotiating their contract by themselves against an army of lawyers
Suckers.
“Wage bills are expensive ongoing costs, and slashing them could give the automaker some breathing room as it tries to right the ship. At the same time, lost staff take their experience with them, and it can be costly and time-consuming to get that back.”
Sorry if i have a hard time feeling bad for a company that has the worlds richest man at the top of the ladder.
You should absolutely not feel bad for Tesla!
Tesla really has lost its way, like a long time ago. This is just icing. Not knowing who to let go, then rehire screams corporate infantilism at its worst.
Time for some f*ck you pay me money time from those let go.
Like the supercharger staff, I am an engineer in an in-demand area. An unrelated area and unrelated company… doesn’t matter. Point is, if I were laid off and then re-hired there would be a new pay grade involved. Only way I’m staying after being laid off is for “eh, fuck it” money. I could have a job with a competitor within a couple weeks. Why would I go back to the people who laid me off?
I’m wondering about the employees they rehired.
If I was one of them, I’d only look to come back if they were offering a higher salary. I would consider it a “making rash decisions tax”. Also, I would look at only coming back on a contractual basis… with CEO-style contract provisions such requiring they keep paying me until the end of the contract even if they fire/downsize me.
Also, I wonder if there were a number of employees Tesla *wanted* to rehire, but the laid off employees told Tesla to go fuck themselves.
It’s the only right move: if they want you back, they better have the money to make coming back attractive. I was at a company that did some voluntary retirement packages (with layoffs coming if it didn’t cut enough). A couple people made some really good money between a generous severance and coming back for some consulting work shortly thereafter.
When my company laid me off it would have required an obscene amount of money for me to come back. Not least because after I started job hunting I discovered how underpaid I was.
Honestly, if I didn’t have anything else lined up, I’d take the job and keep quietly looking for anything more stable in the meantime. It’s so much easier to find a job while you’re employed that I feel like I’ve screwed up my entire career by not being more aggressive about doing just that.
I would want to be compensated well for my involuntary days off, though. What a farce of a company.
While I was job hunting, I learned that at some companies they throw out your resume if you’re unemployed, regardless of the reason. I’m not 100% sure I want to work at a company with such a stupid hiring practice, but it is definitely a thing that it’s harder to find work if you don’t already have it.
I’ve found that dating while married has been extraordinarily productive too.
(jk)
JEEEEEZ. Yikes.
Guess Elon is not as “hardcore” as he likes to pretend.
that guy is the most thin-skinned ten-ply dingus on earth right now
This is not an indictment of Autopian, Lewin, this post or any such thing:
I just got so damn tired reading this post. Just worn out by the idiot parade that Musk insists of making out if all the pies he refuses to take his fingers out of. That’s a lot of lives he’s jerking around just because… Well it’s not really clear why. I am tired of him. I wish that he would go away.
On the plus side it should make for some interesting reading from the stans trying to talk up how this was this plan all along, or how it was savvy business to eviscerate the actual best part of Tesla, and what a very stable genius he is to be doing these violent thrashings with peoples lives and livelihoods.
The guy is exhausting. His antics get old quickly. This is the same as he did with Twitter layoffs, when he had to go back and re-hire people as soon as shit started breaking. Exact same kind of irresponsible way of conducting his business, and he clearly doesn’t give a damn, as he see his subordinates as minions. He could not care less about the well-being of his workforce.
BTW, I do have a moment to talk about Renaults. I know it’s French and would like to know more.
You’re off to an excellent start, Renault is French. Here’s a few things more about it:
Best model: 4
Best colour: Bleu Métal (407)
Best engine family: Cléon-Fonte
Best before: 1992
I think that’s the worst part of this. He already did this exact thing at Twitter, firing people by the hundreds just for the hell of it, then scrambling to try to rehire them because it turns out they actually did work that kept the business running. I mean, you’d have to be a petulant moron to do something like that in the first place, but he didn’t learn anything from the experience!
Exactly. This is nothing new, and he clearly gets off on making these draconian cuts to his workforces. He clearly thinks he’s the coolest guy ever mass-firing people with a push of a metaphorical button, and I bet his brain doesn’t even make the connection when he has to go back re-hiring people. A mind like this definitely compartimentalizes these things, I bet he rehires people convinced it was someone else’s screw up that caused those people to be included in the mass layoffs.
“On the plus side it should make for some interesting reading from the stans trying to talk up how this was this plan all along”
I’ve been accused of being one of the Tesla ‘stans’. But even I think it was callously stupid to fire the entire team just because he had an issue with the manager of that team.
If I was a member of the team and my supervisor got fired because of a disagreement with the big boss, I could understand that.
But if *I* got fired due to a disagreement that I had nothing to do with, I would be PISSED and be talking to an employment lawyer about the possibility of bringing on a wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
And if I got the call from them asking me to come back… well, if they wanted me back, they would have to PAY to have me back.
I’m honestly shocked that the board hasn’t gotten tired of this BS, too. Musk may have stacked the joint with yes-men and loyalists, but surely even they have a breaking point. The whole company deserves better. Tesla has always had a ton of potential and talent behind it, but it’s being run into the ground by an absolute child.
Haha, I definitely get it. I remember for a while after the Twitter buy out a lot of people in my circle wanted to talk about it it and I was just like… ehhhhhhhh
I have a gut feeling that even if people are rehired, Tesla still reset their vesting schedules for PTO, stock options, etc.
Tesla seems like one hell of an environment.
But I get it, some probably feel this is the place to buff the CV, make a pile of money, and then go elsewhere.
Some may be trying to fulfill that “this will make me feel valuable/special/better than others” need.
Some may really believe in this firm and what it does too.
Toxic people recreate toxicity as they go, visiting it on others because they can’t smell/see/sense it, it’s so much a part of who they are. That stuff eventually makes people sick too in insidious ways. The person affected by it can’t see what’s going on, but those around them bear the brunt.
Musk is both toxic and nuttier than squirrel shit. Having worked for egomaniacal unstable people who were equally part brilliant and part sociopathic asshole, I hope those who came back make enough money to walk away when things get weird/bad.
Life is too short and there are better people to work with.
I have a question about all this drama surrounding the specific angle of the story here and elsewhere:
It’s been stated or posited that the automakers that chose to join in on the NACS standard that Tesla brought to the game might be upset that all of a sudden Tesla decides to stop or slow the expansion of the network. Ok, I can see that, but…
Is there no expectation that the other automakers that jumped on the bandwagon are also going to share the cost of expanding the network? Why is the expectation that one company, alone, is going to be the sole supplier of the charging network? Can Ford, Hyundai/Kia and everyone else not build out charging stations and build partnerships with shopping malls or whatever to have their own branded super charging stations?
We don’t all go to solely Chevron stations for our dino juice so why is everyone’s expectation that Tesla builds the entire charging network?
Other charging network are also implementing NACS. Last I heard, EVGo, EA, Blink, Chargepoint, and a few regional players are all rolling out NACS-only or NACS/CCS hybrid stations. The whole point was the industry needed to get behind a single standard and the hegemony of NACS made it the obvious choice.
Tesla had already built out a good network. Tesla represents a large percentage of EVs on the road. They were never going to ditch NACS. So it only made sense for the other automakers and charge networks to jump on NACS.
See above, I just don’t get why the only car builder that has to build fueling stations is Tesla. It makes sense there would be individual companies but one auto company shouldn’t have this responsibility. They maybe should have set a minimum number of station builds as part of the patent sharing contract expectations or something.
That’s a false premise. Telsa built out their own charging network as a way to reduce barriers to entry and add value to their customers. It was a deliberate and smart marketing choice. Telsa isn’t the only automaker building out a charge network, nor did they have to unlike some other automakers.
Yeah, the DOJ should really revisit how shitty the VW charging support was since that was part of their penance for dieselgate. They really did not live up to the spirit of that agreement.
But I don’t think it’s a false premise in the context of how this is being reported. There is a tone of indignation that Tesla may stop building charging stations when we don’t have that expectation that all the others don’t chip in for it.
I mean, Telsa (re: Elon) lobbied pretty hard to get other automakers to adopt NACS. They opened the charging network. They launched Magic Dock. They opened NACS to other OEMs. For the Tesla Supercharger network to take such a hit right as other automakers start to use it seems like a bit of a bait and switch. And then there’s the potential upset to existing Tesla customers that bought their cars in part due to the Supercharger network.
But your premise is based on the idea that other automakers are not building out networks and only Tesla is expected to do so – despite the work that other automakers have and are doing and calls from BEV enthusiasts for other automakers to invest more. The two prime differences are that Tesla did it better/earlier and they co-branded their charge network with their cars.
I can’t speak for the author, but I’m guessing the assumption is based on other automaker’s press releases when they said they would adopt NACS to expand their customer’s charging options. That, and the lack of announcements regarding those automakers building their own networks (outside of existing manufacturer-owned networks like Electrify America). The automakers may well not be upset and have plans to expand the networks on their own, they just haven’t really shown their hands yet if they do.
I understand that this is likely the case but why is Tesla the only auto manufacturer we have the expectation of building the network? We don’t expect GM to build gas stations.
I am upset that the IRA didn’t give out money to expand charging more and instead decided to
buy votesgive individuals cash to buy an expensive vehicle.The IRA absolutely included money for charging expansion. It just didn’t get the same attention as the purchase credit. 30% credit per charging station, up to $100k per installation project. 6% credit if the criteria aren’t met (prevailing wage; apprenticeships; and “qualifying census tract,” which is basically an attempt to make them build in rural areas and poorer areas, instead of continuing to build in affluent urban areas).
My understanding is that NACS becoming the standard comes with an expectation that other companies will be building out using the NACS plug. The worry here isn’t just that Tesla would stop expanding, but that they’d stop maintaining existing chargers, therefore shrinking the network that everyone’s shifting over to.
Also, most other car companies aren’t looking to get into the charging game, though they may partner with charging companies to help with that rollout (Chargepoint and EA have some partnerships).
It’s also important to consider the timing: NACS becomes the go-to charging standard, other manufacturers come aboard, and then Tesla lays off the whole team just when there’s going to be an influx of vehicles and the challenge of accommodating a variety of vehicle sizes and charging port locations. That’s a pretty critical time to suddenly stop supporting improvements to the charging network.
I know Matt here has brought it up before, that Tesla may sell off the charging division. It makes sense I suppose as the margins on charging fees are likely small.
But, if we accept that other auto manufacturers are going to add some charging stations, and other, independent companies will sign onto the standard and build some stations, is it really a big deal that Tesla slowed everything down? Isn’t that normal now that they aren’t solely responsible for it?
I guess I see all this as a story problem. No one is really reporting this as part of the story surrounding Musk firing his whole team. I get it, he’s a petulant, serial ass clown and throws tantrums on a daily basis but I would hope the stories would consider the larger picture here since they all had the tone of Tesla shouldering the entire responsibility for building and expanding the network.
Ok, I’m done with this. I can’t stomach this much defending Tesla and Musk. Thanks, now I have to take a mental health day…
Slowing down their rollout isn’t the big deal. The two issues here are maintenance of the current charging network and the fact that Tesla won contracts to build more out. Other companies could be building those. Hopefully there are alternate bidders to switch to, but this isn’t just Tesla slowing down their buildout. They’re also slowing the buildouts of others and potentially stopping maintenance on existing chargers.
I agree that moving to independent companies should make Tesla less critical, but the buildout of the assumed standard CCS chargers means everyone is behind on building out, since they’ve all had to pivot. Potentially allowing the Superchargers to go to crap (rather than selling or spinning off the charging division with the staff to support it) is going to make things worse for EV owners during the transition.
I’m hopeful that independent companies stepping up will make a better charging experience for everyone, but a hit to charging support right now will hurt EV owners and EV adoption.
We might be losing the focus of the point the deeper we get into the weeds here. I’ll certainly concede some of your points made here except for the fact that it was never announced that Tesla was going to reduce maintenance and in fact I recall Musk saying they needed to slow expansion to better focus on uptime of the existing network.
I get that the optics are bad when they stupidly fire an entire team but they could have conceivably outsourced that maintenance. Given the state of independent charging stations that might be a terrible choice but it is a generally accepted business choice.
But I’m losing the original point. I still see it as an unrealistic expectation here. Tesla had to build and own a charging network at the beginning. No one was going to do that with just a few thousand Teslas on the road every year. Now that there are so many others on the road the market is maturing and everyone is hand-wringing over whether Tesla and Tesla alone is going to build, maintain and expand the network. Where are the stories about For F150 Lightning and e-Mustangs not having a place to Charge because Ford won’t build stations.
The market has matured, everyone has chosen a standard but there’s only one company anyone is looking to for charging stations. Or at least when the story comes out that the main Idiot-In-Charge has fired everyone no one is asking who else will step up now, it’s only framed as “how did this one company let everyone down.” I just don’t get why the expectation is not “when are we going to start seeing Chevy and Ford branded stations now that everyone is using the same plug.”
The expectation, in my opinion, should be that no car company is running a charging network. Tesla should be spinning theirs off to maintain independence. We don’t go to GM gas stations, and we don’t need to see companies carving out benefits for their cars to try to get a competitive advantage.
It absolutely hasn’t. That’s the problem. The expectation isn’t that Tesla retains the responsibility for expansion (well, except for the fact that they had bid on contracts to build in some locations–those projects are likely delayed as a result of needing to shift companies). It’s that there is a worry that cutting the whole team will cause the existing network to suffer. I think most people looking at this would love to see Tesla sell the Supercharger network so another company could maintain and/or expand it.
It was also never announced that there was any plan for maintenance when the team was laid off. That’s a concern, and it should have been addressed before the team was laid off, and a transition plan put in place. With the addition of more vehicles and different models, there are going to be new challenges in maintaining the units, so it’s a very odd time to cut the staff that have presumably been looking at those problems.
I know the point is not realism, but the Mustang Mach E and Rivian would not back into a Supercharger like in these photos. Their charge ports are located behind the front wheel on the driver’s side, while the Hummer and Tesla have theirs on the driver’s side rear corner. So the Tesla and Hummer should be backed in, while the other should be pulled in front-wise. Overall, the only way all four would fit at a Supercharger is for the Hummer and Tesla to be backed in next to each other, and then the Mach E and Rivian pulled in forwards together (with an unusable charger between the forward and backwards facing vehicles), and with an empty stall next to the outermost MachE or Rivian, which will use the empty stall’s charger. Five stalls and chargers for four EVs. /pedantry
I’ve only seen one Hummer in the wild and that person couldn’t park. I can’t blame them, that thing is ridiculously wide. I’m guessing they’ll occupy two charging stations since they’ll park 4-5 feet from the charger.
Following the ultra-wide eHummer is like driving behind a piece of farm equipment.
I’m convinced this layoff was a result of one or more of the following:
“Someone on the Supercharger team pissed Musk off, so he decided to axe the whole crew in a fit of rage.”
This is exactly what happened. The head of Supercharging, Rebecca Tinucci, pushed back against Elmo’s demand to lay off a certain percentage of headcount – so Elmo fired her and the entire staff.
That’s what you get for attempting to protect people against a Narcissistic Billionaire.
Nothing quite like that post ketamine clarity
I wish he’d stay in the K-hole
Let’s see how Sandy Munro (who just called Musk the smartest guy in the world) explain how this is just Musk playing four dimensional chess while the rest of us are playing checkers.
Sandy’s vision was fogged by Elon’s farts.
Ketamine farts. Is that like secondhand smoke?
Correction: Munro called Musk the “greatest person on the planet.” Sheesh.
y i k e s
(especially from someone who should know better after dissecting vehicles of that particular build “quality”)
In the old days, Munro had a pretty good rep in the industry. Is his recent conversion to a Musketeer the result of senility (age 75)?
Unless they are massively overpaying these people, the best talent has to be leaving Tesla these days. No one with options is going to stay on this crazy train.
I tried to get onboard it and they don’t seem to want me. Go figure.
If I was in their shoes I’d be hesitant to come back.
They would have to sweeten the pot significantly in the salary department to even have a chance for me returning.
Even then there would be far too much trust issues to stay long term.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. Been laid off inn the past (salaried engineering) and returning would likely be a hard pass.
On the other hand, if you were still working for Elmo in May of 2024, what did you really expect?
“I didn’t think the leopards would eat *my* face!”
People are really good at compartmentalizing things and they thinking that it won’t happen to them.
I’m very happy that the “Face Eating Leopardy Party” analogy is so well understood. It works in so many instances.
True, but tech’s had a lot of layoffs lately and it’s been hard for a bunch of the folks I know who’ve been actively looking for work to land something else. I would’ve updated the ol’ resume long before this point, but yeah: it’s a weird, bad time to be looking for a job in certain sectors.
Depends on the job market, which is tough right now.
But yeah, if I had options I wouldn’t go back.
I do agree with that. I know personally in my situation that between savings, side freelance gig and my SOs salary if I got laid off it would be fine, just delay some retirement planning, but others might not be in the same boat.
At the worst it would be accept the job back while you continue to look for an alternative with the goal of being out as soon as possible.
The best of Tesla’s supercharger team has already moved on, or will within a year or two. It’s inevitable.
This is what happens. Anyone who had “fuck you” money saved up is too insulted to come back.
Those who didn’t are likely coming back out of desperation, and won’t drink the Kook-Aid* anymore. (*misspelling unintentional, but appropriate)
I was laid off and called back once. The division head tried to say they were concerned about my long-term future while simultaneously trying to get me to sign a non-compete contract as part of the terms of coming back. I didn’t sign the non-compete, got a little raise, then got huge raise and a much better job by leaving less than a year later.
Yeah, screw non-competes. All my homies hate non-competes.
Good news, everyone! Non-competes are screwed!
The Federal Trade Commission just ruled that almost all non-compete contracts are unenforceable. It’s being challenged in court, but the business leaders I’ve talked to about it expect the ruling to stand and are adjusting accordingly with a lot more non-disclosure and trade secret protection provisions in their employment offers.
Yeah—I don’t trust the courts to do what’s right or logical anymore, but if the initial FTC ruling at least scares a few businesses into doing better, hell yeah. I’m for it and it’s about damn time The Man cracked down on this dumb practice.
I imagine the re-hires are all going to be tightening their resumes and taking two-hour lunches/interviews.
Ketamine fueled business decisions…
Guessing the ketamine wore off finally.
Same exact thought… see my comment below!
Ha, we posted at the same time.
I’ve never been through a redundancy process that didn’t involve hiring people back within 3 months.
I’ve never been through a redundancy process where we didn’t hire new people within 3 months, but I have never seen some let go rehired. We always did it thoughtfully and removed those who were hiring mistakes to begin with and flagged them as not eligible for rehire.
This. You can do it the right way, or the asshole way.
And we all know which way Elon always does things.
We all get a choice, it’s amazing he choses what he does.
At least he’s consistent?
Can I work for you please?
I am an independent now. I had to leave corporate America while I could maintain my personal integrity. My last day was when I was asked to travel to the Philippines to teach people how to do the work of my staff.
I will say that with every drawdown of personnel it was weekly stack ranking of associates. The one thing I learned was that the hard workers who just did their job without complaint would get let go if they were faceless. If it only helps one person, I encourage everyone to get in the spotlight for good work on occasion since remembering a face is sometimes all that keeps you employed. 🙁
This is a point well worth emphasizing.
The best worker is typically anonymous, keeps their head down and gets shit done.
Except at layoff time. Then it’s all about who jumped up to claim the credit for the stuff the people around them worked together on.
At some larger organizations I’ve worked, rehiring people is fairly standard. The situation will usually look like this:
Executive leadership declares that X department has to downsize by Y percent (note that “department” is typically a very large team with varying layers of upper and middle management). Invariably, someone with years of highly specialized experience will be let go because those that have been there longest also carry the highest salaries they want to “divest” from.
After several weeks a discovery is made that those that are left don’t actually have a clue how to get anything done in a specific, business–critical area.
They go bring that person back and because this person has been there a long time and has seen it happen before, they ask for, and usually receive, a ~20% bump in pay and maybe some other benefits if their comfortable in their negotiating position.
Large companies have no idea what their people do and cannot even evaluate who is not performing because they shift managers and directors around so much that there is no real tactical understanding of the tasks people do on a day to day basis. It’s honestly ridiculous.
Saw this secondhand with parents and family friends. Parents pursued other opportunities while a family friend went back as a contractor. Presumably at a much higher rate of pay. Benefits weren’t an issue.
Companies that use layoffs to help balance the books are usually acting in panic or too shortsighted to see the flaws of the plan.
Lucky. 🙁
I hope they dug in their heels and demanded a big payday.