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Elon Musk laid off the Tesla Supercharger team; now he’s rehiring them (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by flop_leash_973@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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I can't imagine anyone that has decent prospects would agree to go back to Tesla after getting canned with those kinds of wild swings in decision making.

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[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 309 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Since it’s only been a week, a lot of those people are going to come back. But now they’re coming back with updated resumes and a linked in pro subscription. The good folks will be bailing in the coming months, but they’ll stay and work in a half ass way since it’s better than unemployment and cobra. Musk basically ensured uncontrolled attrition.

How did this idiot actually manage to ship cars to begin with?

[-] mynachmadarch@kbin.social 147 points 7 months ago

He had better handlers and PR team back then so more people thought he was just an eccentric billionaire Playboy inventor and were willing to do the dirty work needed to make it happen.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

All his pedo calling and right wing crazy got online when he fired them.

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think he was genuinely better back then too.

Not great - in a ton of ways - but way better.

Something snapped 4 or so years ago and all his worst parts have been getting progressively worse.

[-] CheesyGordita@lemmy.world 49 points 7 months ago

I think part of it was he had a really tough time dealing with California covid regulations for his business. It wasn’t something he could buy his way out of or pad someone’s pocket to make go away and they were very serious about it. In the same vein, that’s around the time his daughter came out as trans and you can see how that ended with her changing her name and completely disassociating herself from him. Combine that all with a slow (arguable) but consistent decline in the public’s admiration and opinion of him (which he craves desperately) and he began to crack.

Started running into things he couldn’t control or pay to go away and couldn’t cope I guess… I dunno

[-] skyspydude1@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

I can tell you, knowing people who worked with the guy since the original launch of the Model S, he's always been like this. He's always been a loud mouthed idiot, and he's always been insanely unpredictable. The only thing that changed has been his PR team and personal handlers, and how much the news media is willing to focus on how much of a POS the dude is.

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[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago

I mean if you read some of what his first wife wrote, he was pretty much this bad. Though at the time she was saying it the world didn't want to hear it. He also did the whole retcon Tesla to be founded by him over 15 years ago, in some pretty petty behavior. When x.com failed relative to PayPal, he somehow managed to get them to merge and make him the head of PayPal, and then they kicked him down when we almost tanked PayPal.

It basically seems that a critical mass of people were covering for him and propping up the brand of his name and image, likely for the sake of their investments. Which should be a fairly familiar story, because 80s Trump had the same things going on, very bad business results glossed over by investors needing to keep the Trump brand strong for the sake of their own money. Both trump and musk successfully tied up some big business fate with their names specifically, forcing investors to play into the conceit.

[-] turmacar@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

He let the crazy veil slip a bit during the Thai cave rescue drama, but Covid seems to have really pushed him over the edge.

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[-] Zorque@kbin.social 64 points 7 months ago

He didn't, he bought in to a company that was already set on doing it.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

My point being, development of the consumer cars didn’t really kick off instill after Tarpenning and Eberhard left, and I don’t see how this current iteration of Musk would’ve pulled that off. I feel like this iteration of Musk would’ve fucked up Telsa spectacularly.

When the roadster shipped in 2008, that company could only hand make a few hundred cars a year and they didn’t even know how to make their own chassis, seats, infotainment software, etc. They had powertrain tech, and that’s about it.

The vast majority of the consumer product development and manufacturing tech was built after the OG founders left.

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[-] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 20 points 7 months ago

but they’ll stay and work in a half ass way since it’s better than unemployment and cobra.

Yep. Or they'll stay and do no work at all and count on it taking a long while for anyone to even notice.

it certainly isn't competent management they're working for.

[-] HubertManne@kbin.social 20 points 7 months ago

I mean he was not so incompetent at one point. not sure what year exactly it was but he lost it at some point.

[-] Pechente@feddit.de 62 points 7 months ago

I read in another thread that a lot of people agreed Elon lost it when he called that diver of the rescue team for kids trapped in a cave in Thailand a pedo. I mean wtf. If I remember correctly he never apologized and defended his insult. That’s completely unacceptable.

[-] ElusiveClarity@lemmy.world 70 points 7 months ago

That definitely opened my eyes. Also, a lot of rich people lost their minds during COVID because they were briefly treated like the rest of us.

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[-] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 17 points 7 months ago

Yeah. That’s when we noticed it publicly. I was pretty online at that time period and Elon was well regarded before that. There were the his family wealth issues and the whole ousting Tesla founders and calling himself one or whatever that whole thing was.but they seemed like an alright side effect of genuis at the time…

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[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 51 points 7 months ago

He just became more public and we know him better. He's always been the same.

[-] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 31 points 7 months ago

Nah, I have been in meetings with him before. While he was an asshole that I hated due to the way he treated my customer, he was really smart and spoke very lucidly and concisely. He had a vision and was doing everything he could to achieve it.

Nowadays it's like he has no coherent vision and is just doing whatever wild shit comes to his head. I think when he went from "barely a billionaire who spent it all and nearly went bankrupt" to "holy shit printing billions" then all guardrails came off and he let himself go free.

[-] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 24 points 7 months ago

He got rich enough everyone said yes and or smiles. He lost the ability to have people be critical of him and never found someone to aid him.

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[-] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 47 points 7 months ago

He's always been incompetent. He was fired from PayPal for that very reason. He's used his parents emerald business money to fabricate a career. He's paid his way into being the engineer he clearly idolized but couldn't actually earn himself. He bought Tesla, he bought Twitter, the "HyperLoop" was a hundred year old idea called a vac-train. Even the biggest selling point for SpaceX, were just plans NASA had decades ago but the technology didn't exist at the time to pull it off. I mean the Boring Company... we've been successfully digging subway tunnels for a long time... the London Underground opened in 1863. New York had theirs in 1904. Elon in 2018 debuted a claustrophobic tunnel that was less than 2 miles long...

If it wasn't for daddy's money, he would have been a nobody. But he bought his way into some sort of 'relevance' and has conned a lot of people who don't understand science out of a lot of money. His greatest accomplishment is being a great conman.

[-] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 43 points 7 months ago

He fired his PR team a few years ago. That's been the difference.

He said plenty of dumb shit prior with people cleaning it up. One of my favorites was probably 10 years ago now. He claimed Model 3 assembly line automation would move so fast they'd have to worry about wind resistance.

My friends and co-workers still laugh about that one now. It's such an absurd "business" mentality of go fast = good. So go crazy fast = more good. With a technology that doesn't exist and kinda doesn't need to. It makes more sense to increase system capacity (multiple lines) when you're chasing throughput like that. But what makes even more sense is accurately forecasting your production so you don't have to slap a full car together in 30 minutes to keep up with demand.

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[-] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 145 points 7 months ago

Go back with a decent pay bump (obviously he needs them) and with a plan to bolt ASAP. Continue your job search while you collect a higher temporary salary.

Terrible move from Elon as it shows he has no negotiating power.

[-] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 7 months ago

I’d only do this if I was desperate. The company already showed they are willing to just pull the trigger at the drop of a hat and don’t give a fuck, even if I was still looking I’d be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[-] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 40 points 7 months ago

Oh yea, but you're already mentally out the door. You take extra cash and you just collect "easy money" while you shop around the resume or get you big moving plans finished up.

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago

You could even take the job and see how hard you can half-ass it (extra points of you do literally no work) before they fire you again.

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[-] whereisk@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

"This is the single greatest talent acquisition opportunity since I founded EnviroSpark. Tesla had been able to scale their charging infrastructure due in no small part to the talented employees on the Supercharger team."

Half of them likely already have another job.

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[-] modifier@lemmy.ca 126 points 7 months ago

(At the time of the layoffs, Electrek reported that Musk got rid of the entire team because its Tinucci did not lay off enough workers on her own.)

This single anecdote tells you just about everything you need to know about how Elon Musk approaches any kind of interpersonal interaction. His emotional IQ is non-existent.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 124 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I can't imagine anyone that has decent prospects would agree to go back to Tesla after getting canned with those kinds of wild swings in decision making.

I can $ertainly think of a $cenario where I might con$ent to let bygone$ be bygone$ and go back to work for that a$$hole

[-] Z3k3@lemmy.world 66 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Indeed know a guy who got played 9ff by big blue. He was the only one who could do his job so he has screwed them as a contractor for 500 a day 100% working from home and a loooooong termination clauses

Edit sorry this is in the UK not us

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 40 points 7 months ago

500 a day is $62.50/hr, that's not very good for contracting, especially if they don't take taxes and healthcare out. Any sort of key contractor like that ought to be worth at least $250/hr

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[-] scytale@lemm.ee 15 points 7 months ago

He should re-brand as a "consultant" and charge double that.

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[-] foggy@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

I need a 1yr salary sign-on bonus before I clock in. I also need full pay for 120 months after any form of departure from the company.

You know, since I can't trust the stability of the relationship.

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[-] nbailey@lemmy.ca 65 points 7 months ago

It’s crazy how the US gov basically handed him a monopoly on EV charging infrastructure, something Rockefeller could have only dreamed of, and the guy throws it away less than two weeks later in some ketamine fuelled stupor. Then has to backtrack at the cost of reputation, confidence, and sentiment. Truly another great stable genius.

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

He is a textbook example of Fail Upwards.

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[-] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 63 points 7 months ago

This is just getting stupid now. It seems Elon has totally lost his mind.

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 62 points 7 months ago

he's the 'ceo' of like 6 companies. Its clear he's spending all his time giving neonazis handjobs on xitter

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[-] thescoutisaspy@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 49 points 7 months ago

Just when you thought this couldn't get any more stupid.

[-] dinckelman@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago

A delusional billionaire toying with people’s lives. More at 11

[-] Jaysyn@kbin.social 42 points 7 months ago

The singular reason #Muskrat isn't living under a bridge & eating bath salts is that he was born rich.

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

Moral of the story: kids, be born rich and then you can live in a mansion and eat bath salts!

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[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 38 points 7 months ago

On actually developed countries there are laws that force employers to wait a year before they re-hire laid off employees. They can re-hire early but they have to pay a lot of money to the employee and an additional labor tariff in taxes. Precisely to avoid this kind of fuckery.

[-] cedarmesa@lemmy.world 33 points 7 months ago

This is a sociopath testing fealty. He is deliberately abusing people in an attempt to show his power and diminish theirs. Remember when he tried to blame his sociopathy on autism thereby besmirching the disabled? I do.

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[-] credo@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago

Wrong button, oops. Lol #420

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 25 points 7 months ago

Were they trying to start a union or something?

[-] shyguyblue@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago

I'd go back, put my feet on the desk and collect a little walkin around money, basically daring them to fire me again...

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[-] weew@lemmy.ca 17 points 7 months ago

They should just start their own Supercharger company... With blackjack and hookers

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this post was submitted on 13 May 2024

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