When we reported that Tesla was laying off employees at its Michigan engineering center, we thought that was as bad as it got. Well, it seems that the Elon Musk era at Tesla is starting on a worse note than anyone thought possible. Jalopnik reports that employees at Tesla’s Rochester, MI development center did not find out about the layoffs until reading Musk’s blog post saying Rochester would be shut down. Worse still, 90 percent of employees there were simply let go, while the remaining ten percent “have to make their way to the San Jose headquarters with no moving costs covered, no increase in salary and no help getting rid of their old homes,” according to Jalopnik. Not that selling a house in Detroit and relocating to affordable San Jose isn’t a snap. Especially when your boss gives you all of zero warning, and you learn of your firing thanks to the following three sentences: “There will also be some headcount reduction due to consolidation of operations. In anticipation of moving vehicle engineering to our new HQ in San Jose, we are ramping down and will close our Rochester Hills office near Detroit. Good communication, tightly knit engineering and a common company culture are of paramount importance as Tesla grows.” Good communication. Common company culture. Right.
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shame about tesla. Its very cool lookin car – i wish they would put a hot 4 banger in it – a la lotus – and sell 1t like that. That way the’d make a litle money and be able to continue research on the all electric model.
What’s that ‘Musk-y’ smell around here?
It’s the smell of shit like this that led to the rise of the UAW, you know.
This is the kind of thing which once raised the now defunct website f*****company.com to stardom. How long have I been saying not to trust some of my neighbors, the Silicon Valley Master of the Universe types?
“Its very cool lookin car – i wish they would put a hot 4 banger in it – a la lotus – and sell 1t like that.”
Uh, the Tesla is a modified Lotus Elise. You can buy one today if you like:
http://www.lotuscars.com/_pdf/2008brochure.pdf
Is this the way layoffs typically occur in Silicon Valley, or is Tesla unusually cruel and dysfunctional even by high-tech industry standards?
oh, thats why i like the way it looks.
Is this the way layoffs typically occur in Silicon Valley, or is Tesla unusually cruel and dysfunctional even by high-tech industry standards?
This is attrition. Musk is preparing Telsa for a kind financial wringer as the VCs who backed this venture are probably circling the skies because they know–and have known for months–that Telsa the manufacturer is effectively done for.
Telsa is going to go one, possibly both, of the following ways:
* Their liabilities are going to be pared down (and employees, at this point, are liabilities) in preparation for an asset sale to pay back their investors.
* They’re going to divest themselves of their physical assets in preparation for their transition into a holder intellectual property **
Lots of failed dotcoms did exactly this (Transmeta and Silicon Graphics come to mind, but there are many, many others) when they couldn’t hack it making a real product. Musk knows this, and he’s just trying to make sure that his bosses get their money.
** (in other words, a company that either licenses their technology to other, or sue others into licensing).
Musk sounds like a dick. At least he got all the key business school buzz words in.
John Horner, what ever happened to f***** company? That sight was great…..
@ psarhjinian
…a company that either licenses their technology to other, or sue others into licensing
Ain’t gonna happen. All valuable stuff Tesla has is licensed from somebody else.
Battery pack layout, motor design, power electronics design are all by AC Propulsion, just modifoed a bit. All the rest is Lotus’ IP.
what ever happened to f***** company? That sight was great…..
In its heyday it was great. The comments had all sorts of juicy details supplied by pissed off ex-employees. I stopped visiting the site because the comments became endless rants–mostly about gays for some reason–and no longer contained any interesting info. The site slowly became worthless.
I think that before the end the site went to some sort of pay model where all the comments were no longer freely available.
I grew up in Rochester Hills so I feel for the employees. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to devestation about to strike my hometown after “the merger.” I hope Musk’s company implodes into itself in a smoldering pile of irrelevance.