- Tesla paused production for an entire week at its Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.
- During that time, employees reported to internal training instead of building cars.
- A leaked recording shows that Tesla is facing an ongoing morale problem at its factory.
Something strange happened at Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas the week of Memorial Day. The production lines at the plant went dark and the 20,000 folks responsible for running them—whether it be the ones putting the final touches on Tesla's made-in-Texas Model Y or spit-shining panels on the Cybertruck—were told to take the week off if they had paid time off to burn. If not, it was time to come in and either scrub the floors or take some company culture training.
Production pauses do happen. Sometimes it's due to upgrading lines, other times due to demand problems (and it might be a bit obvious which Tesla is facing right now). Tesla's hasn't said which, but a week is "unusually long" according to employees who spoke with Business Insider.
The pause wasn't the shocking part, though. That would be what Business Insider learned via some secretly recorded audio from meetings. It turns out that Tesla has a pretty big morale problem among workers.
In fact, the instructor even asked employees if they'd ever felt that they couldn't "work under these conditions" or had problems with constant changes that swept through the company (likely by unexpected and extreme decisions made by the CEO).
"I know I have," admitted the instructor, according to BI's reporting. "A lot of people leave this company, and they have kind of a negative taste in their mouth. They think: 'Man, it was terrible. It was bad. I got burnt out. I feel like I didn't get anything done, nobody listened to me.'"
The report then notes that the instructor encouraged staff to "take some responsibility for Tesla's culture" and to take "a more active role in improving it."
"Leadership has kind of another level of responsibility for trying to guide and direct that culture," the instructor reportedly told attendees. "But at the end of the day, it's us as the people on the ground that are the reflection of the culture."
It's akin to someone acknowledging the concerns, but gaslighting employees by essentially blaming them for exacerbating the issues.
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Turbulent workplace culture has been a long-standing problem for Tesla, though. It's not just leadership either, as discrimination lawsuits have run rampant at the automaker for years.
Claims of racial discrimination, sexual harassment, plus allegations of disrespectful coworkers and leadership have all been ongoing issues that end up on the factory floor. And with union-busting top brass, employees have little recourse outside of taking complaints up the management chain and hoping for a fix. Clearly, that hasn't worked as well as it could have.
While factory workers are struggling to find the beat of the company drum, Tesla's leadership is basically evaporating. Over the past year alone, Tesla has seen the exodus of a number of top executives, who have either resigned or been shown the door—some more publicly than others.
Here are just a few of the more high-profile separations since 2024:
- Drew Baglino, Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering (18 years with Tesla)
- Rohan Patel, VP of Public Policy and Business Development (8 years with Tesla)
- David Lau, VP of Software Engineering (13 years with Tesla)
- Nagesh Saldi, Chief Information Officer (12 years with Tesla)
- Martin Viecha, Head of Investor Relations (7 years with Tesla)
- Rebecca Tinucci, Senior Director of Charging Infrastructure (6 years with Tesla)
- Daniel Ho, Head of New Vehicles Programs (10 years with Tesla)
- Petter Winberg, Principal CAE Crash Safety Engineer (14 years with Tesla)
- Jos Dings, Director of Public Policy and Business Development (8 years with Tesla)
- Marc Van Impe, Global Vehicle Automation and Safety Policy Lead (8 years with Tesla)
- David Zhang, Program Manager of the Model S, Model X, Roadster and Next Generation Vehicles (10 years with Tesla)
- Mark Westfall, Head of Energy Mechanical Engineering (10 years with Tesla)
- Vineet Mehta, Head of Battery Architecture (17 years with Tesla)
That's a long and non-exhaustive list of folks who aren't just fringe players, but key architects who oversaw Tesla during its exhausting clawing out of production hell. Since some of these people have left, Tesla has faced production pauses, product delays, stock volatility and a CEO who has become so political that being related to the brand today may as well mean that you're radioactive.
Sure, Tesla has the scale and manufacturing muscle to dominate the EV market. But without the employee morale (and, let's face if, the public buy-in of the brand), the automaker lacks clarity and stability in addition to its disconnect from senior leadership.
Despite its challenges, the brand has tons of cash to burn and a CEO determined to govern the company for at least the next five years. But the slow burn of its employees may prove to be more lethal to the automaker in the long run if it can no longer attract top talent or becomes one of those places that locals know to avoid.
Contact the author: rob.stumpf@insideevs.com
