My wife got laid off from Tesla in one of those wave layoffs. This was the standard practice. They actually mailed her personal stuff back and send a pre-paid package for computer and locked access to everything prior to announcing the lay-off. She didn’t even had a chance to say goodbye to the people that she has worked with. There seems to be some old school Jack welsh style brutal management style being practiced in Tesla. Not sure why they think they need to be like that.

Funny how Musk tries to portray himself as a hip, future-focused visionary but runs his companies like a 19th century robber-baron.

It explicitly does not follow that Tesla HR did anything inappropriate or wrong because the wife of this man went on twitter. There's literally no evidence to show that.

If her husband was simply being "made redundant" (i.e. laid off for business purposes) then you're right, it's inconsiderate to the employee to give less than 2 week's notice of such a change.

My point is, however, we can't know if that's what happened here.

Imagine for a second (and I'm NOT saying that's what happened here) her husband was terminated for sexual harassment. Should the company have given him 2 weeks?

The problem is we don't KNOW what happened, and for legal reasons Tesla won't respond (nor would any other company, probably).

A firing, layoff, termination -- without detailed, explicit evidence it's very hard to assign blame. This person has given us little detail so I think we should be cautious about how outsiders evaluate the outcome.

It's disappointing however to see this on the front page of HN as some sort of implicit acknowledgment that what Tesla did was wrong when we don't have a full, independent accounting of what happened.

Just put yourself in the shoes of a company or manager that's had to let someone go for legit reasons -- would you publicize them? We need more data but this tweetstorm doesn't really provide it, IMHO.

Er, just to check, are you aware that Tesla announced layoffs of 7% of the company two days ago https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-company-update ? Are you claiming that the poster is speaking of an unrelated layoff? Or that Tesla swept up sexual harassers in the 7% layoffs?

Of course. But do you have specific knowledge that the 7% layoffs was the explicit reason this employee was let go?

You don't know. I don't know. So why are we passing judgment?

If the tweetstorm was about why it's misguided corporate governance for Tesla to lay off 7% of its workforce, OK, let's have that debate.

But that's not what this thread discusses -- it specifically blames Tesla for laying off 1 person. But we can't possibly know the specifics of this individual's situation.

You think that he was coincidentally laid off for some unrelated purpose on the same day as HR was busy laying off 7% of their employees? That they didn't schedule it for one day before or after?

I don't know, you're right, but this is highly improbable.

I agree with your overall point that we don't have enough info to judge parts of this story, but Tesla publicly let go 7% of it's workforce due to financial pressures and Elon even posted his letter to the workers a few days ago, so this is pretty clearly a general layoff for business purposes, not someone being let go for misbehavior.

As I discuss above -- if we want to discuss the wisdom of laying off 7% of a company, let's do that.

But that's not what this thread discusses, it talks about the injustice of 1 person being laid off. And we can't possibly know the exact specifics of this individual's situation, so why are we passing judgment?

I read the wife's thread as not being upset that he's laid off (although I'm sure she's not happy about it), but being upset about the _manner_ in which he was laid off: e.g. short notice, being escorted out, bonuses not being paid, NDAs requested, etc.

I agree that it's hard to judge those items without knowing the details of his offer letter, the terms of the bonuses, etc.

NDA requested? Sure pay my bonus

No - now what?

You don't get the NDA. And I say whatever I want.

Mass layoffs are often used as cover for sweeping out the deadwood and other problematic employees. It allows both parties to save face.

> don't escort them out the building

This is done because every once in a while, a laid-off employee will attempt sabotage or theft on the way out. A bad apple here and there ruins it for everyone.