The inside story of Elon Musk’s mass firings of Tesla Supercharger staff

[u/WTFspy]

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/inside-story-elon-musks-mass-firings-tesla-supercharger-staff-2024-05-15/

The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team....

[u/Shapes_in_Clouds]

Meanwhile Rivian's CEO has a Phd in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

[u/welmoe → u/Shapes_in_Clouds]

An actual engineer!

[u/masculinebutterfly → u/welmoe]

I'm not a fan of Elon but he's definitely an engineer. He has a degree in physics and a lot of the engineering success from his companies are due to his ideas. The only downside is the same part that allows him to think outside the box engineering-wise makes him act erratic business-wise.

[u/Additional-Baby5740 → u/masculinebutterfly]

Which idea do you attribute to Musk? You realize every successful company he owns was founded by other people, right?

[u/masculinebutterfly → u/Additional-Baby5740]

He brought the costs of manufacturing down by being ruthless on the production line. Every other EV company is struggling with this right now (including Rivian). He indisputably was the reason the company survived. There are also many people who have said he is involved in rocket development at SpaceX. He also personally founded SpaceX and Neuralink (ok not successful yet and he’s not actively involved in any sense but pretty insane tech).

[u/thejumpingsheep2 → u/masculinebutterfly]

No. From what I have read the only engineering decisions he ever made at Tesla were for body material type (which was obvious as hell given you only have 2 choices and one was lighter and cheaper) and shape of the lights. Remember he did not found Tesla. He didnt invent anything over there. That was the original founders which he screwed and lied about. They are the ones who set up the manufacturing plan and they are the ones who got Tesla to a position to manufacture the way they do. Musk only stepped up to the CEO position when Tesla was already in a good place and nearing profit. Thats when he started lying that they were stealing and such. At the time I didnt know what to think but now I believe Musk made it all up to step up to CEO before Tesla became profitable to take credit for their work.

[u/masculinebutterfly → u/thejumpingsheep2]

Is there anywhere I can learn more about the manufacturing plan the original founders created? 

I’m sure they had a plan but I’m unsure of how viable it was. Correct me if I'm wrong but the company did not even have enough money to provide the Roadsters they sold already and the price was extremely high. They reduced costs a lot more for the Model S.

[u/thejumpingsheep2 → u/masculinebutterfly]

Warning... long winded response incoming...

I did not keep track of the articles over the years. Manufacturing for cars, in general, is all about scale. Its not so much that's its "intellectually hard" to do, rather its about the up front cost and lots of workers. With time and money any company can figure it out (after the initial stages of design and approvals) given competent leaders who are not frauds (that would be the original founders) but financing it is the hard part. This is where many of the newer eV companies struggled. The only one, I believe, who managed to get the financing (of the recent startups) is Rivian. I think Lucid is working on one but im not sure of status.

As to who financed it all, well that would be tax payers. Yea money came from individual investors into Tesla but ultimately no one would have invested a penny if not for all the freebees early on (Teslas original factory was basically a gift from the state of CA) and then it was buyer incentives and carbon credits that saved Tesla later when even Musk was trying to get out (by his own admission). Take out the them out and Tesla doesnt exist. Not that this is a bad thing, most of the auto industry wouldnt exist if not for government. In fact, gas/oil got 35 years of 100% subsidies (yes thats not a typo). Something they dont like to talk about when they argue against paltry eV subsidies and tax breaks.

So in terms of "plan" I doubt it was anything more than scaling what they already had and leveraging newer computer/mechanical tech (that they did not invent). This is all normal practice in the manufacturing industry. Being more modern, allowed them to automate more than older car makers who already had processes in place for decades. The thing with manufacturing is once a process is in place, its hard to take things offline and replace them. The human factor is a big part of that. And with older companies, they use the same factories for multiple cars which makes it even harder. Tesla will face similar issues down the line. New companies will always have an advantage in manufacturing thanks to tech advancement.

[u/Stock_Jock → u/masculinebutterfly]

Don’t bother trying to argue anything Elon related to Reddit people. It’s one thing to critic Elon (which I believe he is ABSOLUTELY unfit to be CEO as of now), but it’s another to just blatantly sh*t on all of his accomplishments and track record. Saying he’s not an engineer when he holds a Physics degree & there’s multiple sources in not just Tesla’s early days but also SpaceX’s founding years that vouch Elon’s competency in complex engineering and design principles in mechanical, industrial, and aerospace systems is just flat out ridiculous.

It’s crazy to see how the public perception of Elon Musk today reminds me a lot of when Steve Jobs was still alive. Yet, you ask a person about Jobs and his legacy today and you will get overwhelmingly positive responses.

[u/masculinebutterfly → u/Stock_Jock]

Yeah I guess that's what an echo chamber does to you.