Some highlights I found interesting:
After Tinucci had cut between 15% and 20% of staffers two weeks earlier, part of much wider layoffs, they believed Musk would affirm plans for a massive charging-network expansion.
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.
The departures have upended a network widely viewed as a signature Tesla achievement and a key driver of its EV sales.
Despite the mass firings, Musk has since posted on social media promising to continue expanding the network. But three former charging-team employees told Reuters they have been fielding calls from vendors, contractors and electric utilities, some of which had spent millions of dollars on equipment and infrastructure to help build out Tesla’s network.
Tesla’s energy team, which sells solar and battery-storage products for homes and businesses, was tasked with taking over Superchargers and calling some partners to close out ongoing charger-construction projects, said three of the former Tesla employees.
Tinucci was one of few high-ranking female Tesla executives. She recently started reporting directly to Musk, following the departure of battery-and-energy chief Drew Baglino, according to four former Supercharger-team staffers. They said Baglino had historically overseen the charging department without much involvement from Musk.
Two former Supercharger staffers called the $500 million expansion budget a significant reduction from what the team had planned for 2024 - but nonetheless a challenge requiring hundreds of employees.
Three of the former employees called the firings a major setback to U.S. charging expansion because of the relationships Tesla employees had built with suppliers and electric utilities.
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.
The dude’s a petulant child. No wonder conservatives fawn over him.
He’s Zorg from the 5th Element.
That’s an insult to zorg
When this news dropped a little while ago. I saw a lot of speculation that basically Elon got mad that a woman said he was wrong and laid off possibly Tesla’s biggest asset in a tantrum.
Honestly, at this point, the most surprising part of this situation is how unsurprised I am at that being exactly what happened.
Hopefully, this will not set back a widespread EV charging network (Tesla or otherwise) too much; but it definitely sounds like damage has been done.
Hopefully this knocks down Tesla’s dominance in the charger ecosystem honestly, we need competition to take over that aren’t tied to a single vehicle manufacturer. Yes Tesla was going to open their network up to third party cars but they’re taking their sweet time in doing so. I hope competitors were able to swoop in and hire talent and take over broken contracts on abandoned charging station projects.
Spite and pettiness seem like a poor way to run a business but what do I know? I’m just a guy who’s gotten zero starships successfully to orbit.
Musk doesn’t do anything but buy companies and interrupt their work with his baby shit. His only skill is having money.
All of his “he refuses to accept no!” Turns into “shoulda fucking listened to who told you no, idiot” in a matter or months or less.
He’s so stupid, but powerful because of money and the cult that keeps letting him have it.
Musk is also a guy who’s gotten zero starships into orbit. The engineers at Space X have, and to a certain extent Gwynne Shotwell is a part of that, but that is despite Musk, not because of him.
AFAICT, the charger network is a huge part of Tesla’s value proposition. Laying off the entire 500 person team like this is going to be a massive, massive disruption no matter what anyone says, you can’t just patch it with [checks notes] an entirely different team. It’s going to take that new team months to get up to date, put out fires, find their bearings, etc. and by that point, issues are already snowballing. The rapport and contacts problem is also going to be enormous; basically shit canning all of the company’s industry/logistics ambassadors is what, in any other light, would be called a disaster. This is going to be a clusterfuck, and that’s before any competitors interested in starting their own charger network start scooping these newly available specialists up.
It’s incredible to see this man still idolized, even by bosses and other execs, as he tanks not just one but two household name businesses AT THE SAME TIME.
FYI: EV makers adopted Tesla’s chargers a while ago. Fuck Musk. He strongarmed everyone and then threw it in the trash.
NACS is just the standard CCS protocol shoved in the objectively better Tesla plug, and part of making it a standard is the requirement of opening the design for everyone to use. So while the plug is from Tesla, they actually were the ones that switched to the CCS protocol first and dropped their own proprietary system, which is how they were able to open the Supercharger network to other cars in the first place.
And that’s also why NACS is backwards compatible with all current EV chargers that already exist with a simple adapter - either by the driver, or by swapping the cable.
