- Tesla laid off more than 10% of its workforce on Sunday evening.
- Some factory workers only realized they had been fired when their badges did not work, sources told BI.
- At the Nevada plant, the process of clearing out laid-off staff awaiting entry caused a wait of about two hours, a source said.
Tesla told staff it was laying off more than 10% of its workforce Sunday evening, but some workers did not realize they had been laid off until they showed up at the company’s facilities, five current or former workers told Business Insider.
The reductions affected both engineers and production associates. At Tesla’s factory in Sparks, Nevada, workers had to wait in line for about two hours Monday morning to enter the factory following badge checks, one worker said.
At the factory, the security team was scanning the badges of workers exiting shuttles that transported people between the factory and nearby parking lots, said two current Tesla employees who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter. Typically, security guards inspect workers’ badges on site, but usually do not scan them directly, the two workers said. On Monday morning, officials spotted the fired workers and sent them away in separate vans, the two workers said.
Three other former Tesla employees said workers at the Fremont factory were told by security that if their badges didn’t work, they were no longer employed.
The laid-off Tesla employees received notice via their personal emails Sunday evening and their access to Tesla systems was revoked, four workers said. The company-wide email from Elon Musk announcing the cuts was delivered shortly before midnight Sunday, according to a timestamp on the memo seen by BI.
“We have conducted a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce globally. Unfortunately, your position has been eliminated through this restructuring,” read a separate email informing affected employees that they had been laid off, according to a copy viewed by Business Insider.
The email sent directly to dismissed employees said the cuts would take effect immediately and workers would receive information regarding their layoffs within 48 hours.
On the same day Tesla announced layoffs, at least two executives resigned from the company. Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Electrical Engineering Drew Baglino and Vice President of Public Policy and Business Development Rohan Patel said on X that they left Tesla on Sunday.
A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Before the layoffs, Tesla employed more than 140,000 workers worldwideincluding more than 3,000 at its Nevada factory.
Tesla employees are not the first to unceremoniously discover that they have been laid off while trying to move into their former workplace. Last year, some former Google employees told BI they learned they had been fired when they couldn’t log into the office.
Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Contact the reporter via non-business email at gkay@businessinsider.com
businessinsider
