So you think it's OK for a business to knowingly take actions that are likely to kill people, as long as they really need the money? Thank God most of modern society disagrees with you.

I have bad news for you: Modern society not only allows business and individuals to take actions that will kill people, but it quantifies to what extent in dollar terms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

Scroll down for a country-by-country breakdown.

I personally don't pass judgement on it.

thats not an argument for calling tesla an essential service.

Tesla is a $100B, 17 year old company.

I'm not sure of your point here? Presumably Tesla's capital position is still significantly smaller than VW? I do not know this, though, as I am not as familiar with VW's capital structure.

TBH, I'm more worried about what will happen with Ford or GM if they have even a short outage. GM has massive ongoing obligations and a relatively weak balance sheet, afaik.

It was. The recent damage to the price puts it closer to $80B today.

Strictly in terms of market cap (not the best metric, admittedly) Tesla is larger than VW. (both company's stocks have been devastated recently though)

Market cap is a psychological construct. It will not help you when you're already bleeding cash and your cash flow suddenly goes sharply negative. It's entirely possible that this calamity will kill off some very large companies (by any metric) that have been operating in the margin.

Sure, but it's a good argument against calling something a "small upstart".