Tesla's mass firings spread to SolarCity | Hacker News Reader

Tesla's mass firings spread to SolarCity

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160 pointswhatok177 comments

1,200 of 33,000 employees amounts to 3.6% of the work force. This level of action, 1 in 25 employees, gives managers an opportunity to release employees that looked good in the interview but did not meet expectations. Whether Tesla conducted this in a proper manner is open to debate and perhaps details will emerge if/when any former employees pursue Tesla in court. But any company needs to address the inevitable hiring mistakes and I don't see evidence that Tesla is doing any more than that.

> I don't see evidence that Tesla is doing any more than that

If the lack of promised performance reviews is accurate, that's the obvious issue - it implies a labor force decision disguised as a performance decision. This is a pretty common move in e.g. game development, so it certainly isn't unthinkable.

The point about total workforce size is well taken, though; this still seems like it could be as simple as "times are tough so we're cutting more stringently than we might otherwise".

Then the WARN act applies

Would you say 3,6 % is that stringent though? I remember GE under Welch fired 10 % of the lowest performers every year, that seemed kind of stringent. But Tesla is fast-hiring and acquiring, so seem to have a larger need to fix hiring-errors than GE. At the end of 2015 they had only 14,000 employees! In light of that, 3,6 % seems completely reasonable to me. Low, even.

Concerning the performance review: would expect that after acquisition, SolarCity would adjust to Tesla's performance standards. So even if they were based on prior performance reviews, still seems like a reasonable action and level to me.

As much as I try to squint, I'm having troubles seeing the smoking gun here.

> Welch has said his first rule of firing an employee as a manager is to avoid any element of surprise. Your workplace ought to be built on constructive criticism and feedback.

> Expectations should be so clear that anyone in the aforementioned bottom tenth of your firm knows they'll be there before the ranking and yanking starts. "Anybody who is fired and surprised? That's the bosses' fault," Welch said on Bloomberg TV in 2015.

Contrast the GE description to what happened here with Tesla: absolute blindsiding where the employees were not given any performance feedback before getting axed.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14315785/1/how-to-fire-peopl...

When MS fired people for performance every year people hated them for it, and their culture was considered notoriously awful.

They had stack rankings. Fire one guy per department even if everyone is ok.

Any signs this is what tesla did? Lowest 2% is fine. Lowest 2% per team is not fine, means you need a scape goat for each team.

I thought the concensus now was that Welch's leadership under GE was not good.

There's been a lot of rants about the utility of stack ranking and this sort of "fire the worst performers because everyone else is better" attitude. Namely wrong incentives.

You have John Carmack and a clone of John Carmack working on your game engine. You have stack ranking. Which one should you let go during review season? Should you hire some extra people to protect your good people?

That worked at GE largely because they were getting rid of the gold watch retirement crowd. That worked in the past as companies had people who worked there all life, and most of the time late in career they would come to work, do nothing all day and go home.

Jack Welch was simply doing long pending layoffs.

That worked at GE largely because they were getting rid of the gold watch retirement crowd

You mean, getting rid of people who had been promised deferred compensation, before having to make good on it? That was the deal with old-skool companies, remain loyal for 30 years then ease your way into retirement. GE got the loyalty then shafted those guys.

The economic set ups across the world changed. You can't fault companies for doing what was needed.

In India many old people got shafted both the ways being asked to take voluntary retirements and being subjected to high inflation rates at the same time.

You can't fault companies for doing what was needed.

Well, you can, or no obligation means anything anymore. Why should a company even pay you your wages if things are a little tight this month, by that logic?

Salary is an obligation in return for your services. The company doesn't owe a person a job for passing time at office.

Its just people woke up to the fact that socialism wasn't a feasible model anymore.

OK, a company decides it won't pay your pension anymore then - identical scenario.

Its not an identical scenario. Companies don't pay pensions in most countries. These largely get paid through Pension funds, which by and large investment money in Government backed securities.

These are debt obligations at the level of a country. On 'your' investments.

This is totally different than saying a person should be given a job, even if they don't work.

Companies don't pay pensions in most countries

Ummm airlines and automakers in the US do, or did. Lots of companies/countries are the same.

That isn't what happened though. You are just assuming they might have fired the bottom. If they did, that might be reasonable.

I'm not able to provide evidence, so my assertion that their firings were a lot of bullshit isn't going to carry much weight. I'm ok with that. But likewise, you might want to consider waiting for evidence that they did in fact cut underperformers, because I don't think you will see that either.

Indeed. Calling 3.6% a "mass firing" to me looks like pushing a narrative.

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

> "Mass layoff" is defined by the United States Department of Labor as 50 or more workers laid off from the same company around the same time.

That's a pretty inaccurate way set point a term.

In SolarCity case, that means 0.15% of their workforce.

Its what the law calls it and with my Industrial Relations / HR hat on firing > 50 at one time is redundancy / layoffs.

firing an entire team of 10 or so for malfeasance I could buy - btw collective punishment of employees is allowed under common law

By that definition, they could lay off only 0.15% of their workforce and still qualify. Likewise, bigger companies are probably in a perpetual state of "mass layoff."

Context is important, though. The term can be simultaneously technically correct in the context of US Department of Labor terminology and misleading to a general audience. I think that is happening here.

If the layoff is part of one event, then why shouldn't it qualify?

Your "bigger company" example is just an example of scale, there's just lots of individual events.

Instead, here is SolarCity firing 1,200 employees on the same day and saying that it's all just coincidence on their individual performances, not a unified decision.

> If the layoff is part of one event, then why shouldn't it qualify?

It does qualify. My argument is that the statement out of context is misleading.

> Your "bigger company" example is just an example of scale, there's just lots of individual events.

Yes. It's an example of how using the term "mass firing" to describe "any 50 employees of a company being terminated around the same time" as the headline has done is misleading.

> Instead, here is SolarCity firing 1,200 employees on the same day and saying that it's all just coincidence on their individual performances, not a unified decision.

No, former employees estimate Tesla is firing a total of 1,200 employees, some of which are SolarCity employees. And there was no statement it was a coincidence or not part of a coordinated effort (of course it was). That's not mutually exclusive with legitimately culling your low performers.

Is there a difference in this case between "laid off" and "fired"?

"Fired" generally means terminated for cause, though not exclusively so. "Laid off" implies a general workforce reduction, and maybe some severance payment, job placement help, etc.

Either way you're out of a job, so in that sense there's not much difference.

Depending on the country/state laid off and fired be very different legally.

Laid off generally comes with a severance package that is consistent across the laid-off employees. The reason for the employee termination is (at least outwardly) the companies fault due to the company not having a use for that subset of employees - department closure, cashflow, product cancellation etc. In the UK a company must announce it is going to go through a lay-off some weeks before actually terminating employment contracts.

Firing someone puts the 'blame' on the employee. Generally the company has to document the reason for firing the employee. Even in places with 'at will' employment law a company will want documentation in place in order to defend against wrongful termination or discrimination claims.

Companies will often offer some cash sweetener to a fired employee in return for them signing a termination contract that makes future legal claims more difficult (or costly).

Might be a narrative. One reason would be to push the stock price down. Currently down to 330 from 360 a month ago. Could be a good time to buy if you're long.

Although I agree with you, you are also making an assumption that certain managers are not hiring mistakes as well. Managers can be just as bad as employees. Especially in a big company, bad managers can hide behind smoke screens by shifting the blame on employees.

Do we know there aren't any managers leaving? Where I work when they do this sort of thing only the very top layers of management are secure.

I think the assumption there was more that, for the purposes of that sentence, all employees are workers. Managers are just employees that are assigned to manage people.

> 1,200 of 33,000 employees amounts to 3.6% of the work force. This level of action, 1 in 25 employees, gives managers an opportunity to release employees that looked good in the interview but did not meet expectations.

That level of "firing" is rather suspect for an "new" company that is supposed to be growing.

> But any company needs to address the inevitable hiring mistakes and I don't see evidence that Tesla is doing any more than that.

If you are making that level of mistake where you have to conduct mass layoffs, then it doesn't bode well for tesla.

It's so easy to hire bad apples. I've been through three rounds of layoffs at two separate companies: each time most of the people who were let go were poor performers, they either were bad salespeople or bad coders. The other ones were just lazy, working only 9-5, and taking frequent time off for silly reasons like "my rabbit is sick." As long as you're cutting less than 10% of staff you're cutting fat, not muscle (though you might hit a small amount of muscle by accident).

> The other ones were just lazy, working only 9-5

I completely understand the latter issue about taking off randomly for wild reasons, but why is working agreed-upon hours a bad thing?

Because the code-slaves should work harder and give at least 80hrs a week!

No, but seriously, if a job is asking more than 9 to 5, they're asking you to put out sub-standard work while stealing your time needlessly.

So many people here forget 12 hours pay for an 8 hour day was a rallying cry for organized labor at one point, and that all these terrible labor practices that seem common at smaller tech firms (and Tesla) are very bad and create bugs, sickly workers and hurt everyone involved. Not that management is smart enough to realize that!

If you're an exempt employee (you're exempt if you're not an hourly employee or making over ~$23,000 USD in the USA), means that you're not qualified for overtime. When other team members are putting in over time, but a few people aren't they're effectively freeloading on the people putting in more effort.

If there's more work to do than what the current employee set can do in 40 hrs/wk, then the team didn't hire enough employees. I realize that rare is the team that is fully staffed, but the employee shouldn't be obliged to make up the delta because management didn't hire appropriately.

So , the company tries to extract free labor but the person who doesn’t let them get away with it is the person you blame???

I don't see how it's free labor. I'm not sure if you're European or American, but in the U.S. most professional jobs don't have set hours, it's more you work until the task is satisfactorly completed within defined time constraints.

I'm American but I have luxury of working as a consultant - I get paid for every hour. I've worked for lots of companies and without exception, I've really like working for the company and when there was an occasional push, worked some extra hours. That said, I'd take some comp time later.

"in the U.S. most professional jobs don't have set hours, it's more you work until the task is satisfactorly completed within defined time constraints."

Then the company won't mind if I leave early when I have my work done right? Oh, you mean this relationship with the company is only supposed to go one way - to the company's benefit?

[Twirling my mustache] Wouldn't it be great if we could convince an employee (that we are exploiting) that the reason he has to work late is because another employee didn't donate labor to the company (and not that the deadlines are unrealistic)?

I think employers and employees sometimes forget that this is a value for value, business relationship. Think of what's implied in the common phrase "I gave him a job." An employer doesn't "give" someone a paycheck anymore than an employee gives the employer his labor - it a value for value trade.

No, the company is the freeloader in this case. I don't know where you get this whole idea of no set hours. Salaries are based on the expectation of 40 hours a week. If a company is asking for more than that on a regular basis, that company has some significant issues that need to be addressed. Workers who are not willing to be taken advantage of should not have to suffer consequences for their employers mismanagement.

Sources said that HR department representatives told staff in one office they were being let go due to problematic "conduct with peers." When questioned, an ex-employee said, HR declined to specify any details about the alleged poor conduct, which had never been previously discussed.

<tin foil hat> Is this pre-empting a union push?

Not clear as to whether those were SolarCity or Tesla (direct) employees.

No it's preempting going broke. Especially since Elon is one of the combined companies biggest creditors and has his own personal finances deeply entwined with that of the company. (See also Sears / Eddie Lampert)

Yep they got so much money for nothing and still prefer to rip off their people

"Is this pre-empting a union push?"

Honest clarification request: Do you to suggest/worry that they are classifying "agitating for a union" as problematic "conduct with peers"?

(If so, I expect we'll hear if that's the case soon, with a chance of hearing that even if it's not the case. That is a storyline the media would be salivating to run.)

Honest clarification request: Do you to suggest/worry that they are classifying "agitating for a union" as problematic "conduct with peers"?

That's the way I read it.

Basically yes. Perhaps "problematic conduct with peers" is poor wording or maybe it refers to some harrassment crackdown or maybe it's due to financial problems, really it could be any number of things but because it's Tesla the union connection is what comes to mind. Regardless it's obvious they're firing people for something they don't want to be connected to and using 'performance' as a smoke screen.

That wouldn't make much sense, though. The last thing you'd want to do if you were trying to keep out a union is behave in a way your employees would see as tyrannical.

Well there's two opposite ways that have historically been tried to avoid unionisation - you can make sure employees are all happy enough not to want it, or make sure they're too scared of losing their jobs should they support it.

I remember a while back some .com company laid off a bunch of their employees (more than 40%? 50%?). Firing that many people at once triggered a set of 'lay off' laws, which required certain behavior from the company (such as giving the employees X days notice, etc, etc).

This is pure speculation, but I wonder if Telsa is trying to do last-minute layoffs while avoiding whatever 'lay off laws' there are by claiming that each individual is totally being fired for totally legit individual reasons, for sure, yep.

The provision you're referring to is called a WARN notice. Employers with 100 or more employees typically are required to give 60 days notice.

The Department of Labor usually investigates these things.

This is not your father's Department of Labor. I see little chance that any enforcement will happen.

Companies don't fire for cause very much. It's just asking for a wrongful termination lawsuit.

It certainly is suspicious that people were fired "for performance reasons" when the company is unable or unwilling to provide the performance data that would support that assertion.

But, on the other hand, these employees were probably "at will", so the company does not need to give any reason, or even to publicly justify the firings in any way. So it could be that "performance" is the lie that they believe to damage ongoing recruiting efforts the least.

Or it could be that they have determined individual performance assessments to be useless in the face of the more objectively measurable department-wide performance numbers.

All I know for certain is that I won't be sending them any applications or resumes until they can elucidate their motives behind this.

The simplest explanation is that the company isn't making money and investors are getting antsy about bankruptcy.

California is at will but they do have specific laws and procedures for mass firings and layoffs. I think Tesla is trying to skirt these by calling them performance related instead of layoffs. (And to protect their stock price from having to admit they can't afford all their workers.)

The company does have to prove that they didn't fire someone for a restricted reason and basically if there's any hint of that it is viewed poorly by the govt/courts.

I imagine a lot of lawyers will gear up here and there will be a lot of eDiscovery.

You can fire people for any reason, but there are costs involved in laying people off.

HR is a cynical business. Requiring stuff like training your outsourced replacement is also a strategy here — the longer you hang on to “undead” employees, the more likelihood they will leave voluntarily.

Tesla has been waging an internal war against union formation, so wouldn't surprise me if they were firing people they saw as pushing unionization.

That's a surefire way to get hauled up before the NLRB. I'm not surprised companies try it, but they usually get sued for it.

NLRB still exists? I honestly thought the new administration got rid of that.

You don't think that would have been announced somewhere in the news, if it had happened?

The NLRB already filed a complaint against Tesla recently: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CPT.3....

It doesn't seem impossible on the corporate side, but I'd be surprised if it was true and yet none of the newly-fired employees speaking anonymously to the media raised the point.

Your peers were here on weekends and you were not.

Your peers drank the coolaid an you did not.

“You make the rest of us look bad when you don’t donate your weekend to The Company. Wouldn’t you rather make Our Leader richer instead of being with your family?”

For cause terminated employees don’t get unemployment.

My guess is that since Musk companies don’t feel constrained by rules, they figure they’ll save money in UI taxes by forcing workers to adjudicate their UI benefits. They get the benefit of cooking their balance sheet as an additional benefit.

>For cause terminated employees don’t get unemployment.

For the most part this isn't true - only intentional misconduct is grounds for not receiving unemployment.

Couldn't Tesla / SolarCity just said, "Hey, company didn't do well, sorry, here's 2 weeks severance"? Why do this whole "bad performance review" nonsense.

Because the stock price would drop and Tesla wants to do another round of funding (aka issue more stock) soon.

The stock price has dropped by $64 since the start of the week BTW. It was at $325 when I checked earlier today and came from a high of $389.

That's not correct. $389 is its all-time high. It closed at ~$345 on Friday and opened ~$350 on Monday.

it's literally $325 right now so what's not correct?

skgoa said "The stock price has dropped by $64 since the start of the week BTW."

It has dropped ~$25 since the start of the week. It's down $64 from its all-time high.

I don’t know why you got down voted. That’s what Tesla should have done if they haven’t documented any performance problems.

What they did is basically slander with real economic consequences to those fired and they should sue.

Being fired with cause impacts their ability to collect unemployment, which most these people deserve.

It also puts a bad mark on their employment history, unless they lie about how they where fired.

> Being fired with cause impacts their ability to collect unemployment, which most these people deserve.

afaik, performance doesn't impact your benefits in the US, unless it's tied to 'willful misconduct'. if you're (for example) simply incompetent, but honest and good-intentioned, it's entirely the employer's fault for improperly filling the position per their own requirements.

The “with cause” implies they have sufficient reason to deny unemployment iirc. Or that they merely think they do.

In the U.S is it legal for companies to disclose how former employees were let go (laid off vs. fired). I imagine they just give dates. Otherwise how would fired employees ever gain future employment in competitive fields.

Is it legal? Yes.

Do companies do it? Usually not.

Public companies of that size have requirements to follow including notice periods. I think it is % based.

That’s a great way to get sued. The point of performance reviews is to standardize rankings so that you can use them later to fire/promote without being sued for discrimination.

Isn't there a set procedure for companies to report performance (of the company's finances, not individual employeess)-based layoffs like this to the Feds?

What are they going to do, say "no, you owe these people jobs, go take out a loan?" Well, maybe if the company can't demonstrate that they actually need to drop so many people, but this sort of seems like they're being lazy and cheap, at best.

Y'know, it's starting to really seem like the market simply is not willing to accept how expensive things are.

'Company didn't do well' translates to some higher manager up the chain performing badly. Its always easier to shift the blame on somebody else, and have them take the fall for the big shots.

This doesn't really surprise me. A few years ago we had lead generation software that catered to the solar industry. We had some decent sized clients and it did really well for about 2 years. Once the tax credits started going away and the power companies started killing off their rebates, a lot of these solar companies were not able to survive.

One of our larger clients who was heavily funded went bankrupt this year and many of the smaller/mid sized clients have folded within the last year too.

It is risky basing too much of a business on tax credits and rebates.

I was thinking this myself. For all of Musk's braggadocio about not needing, and even being hurt by, subsidies, Tesla, whose profits only become more negative every quarter, has had its sales decimated in the countries that ended tax breaks for electric vehicles.

With the specter of a major tax overhaul and massive spending cuts, a major recall, and still not enough strength to stand on its own, Musk has to be at least a little worried about Tesla's future and the futures of his other pet projects.

I’m surprised. At the rate PV has been falling these subsidies are probably negligible (federal rebate withstanding).

I purchased PV because the cost with a 20-year loan comes out to be 13c kWh, meanwhile PG&E charges 29c kWh. And the loan interest is tax-deductible.

What company did you use? I have received 3 quotes and none make much sense.

Solarcity. Highly recommended.

Weird. I had them come by for a quote and they were about 25% more than the second closest bid. I never did the full math. This was on a 5kW installation.

My email is in my profile if you want my details. Our system is 6.8kwh. I didn’t go with solarcity because they were the cheapest.

If you purchase with a loan, you can get a much better deal and it can make sense.

A lot of the solar companies were selling their low interest $0 down lease programs and they themselves were benefiting from the credits/rebates not the homeowner. Homeowners didn't really have to have a great credit score either. Once the credits and rebates went away, the lease programs weren't sustainable for the solar companies.

That rate is much higher than I paid in Texas or pay in New Jersey. In fact, I can buy wind power from Green Mountain for less than your solar install cost.

Totally agree, it makes sense in many parts of the country because of a combination of incumbent electricity costs as well as high number of sunny days.

Just a few miles away in Santa Clara it would make no sense at all, since they have their own utility where power costs just 10c kWh.

There is something nice knowing your electricity costs are relatively fixed for 20 years though, since the price tends to follow the rate of inflation and the loan is fixed.

Recall that Musk has been begging Congress to end the subsidies (broadly defined), which are distorting the market.

Odd that he didn't have an objection to it when Tesla was benefiting from it.. but once Tesla 3 sales crossed that 200k threshold, and set the end date on the subsidy for Tesla... then Musk comes out and says 'We MUST end this subsidy for everyone immediately'.

Real principled stance there.

I suppose it's a quick way to kill of the competition.

Let me just state that Elon musk has , in fact mentioned going zero on subsidies before the 200k , namely, qhen bob lutz was critizizing the subsidies and loans tesla got, he offered a competition where everybod would go to zero subsidies.

You mean the comments Lutz made in Oct 2016?

There were 325k model 3 preorders in April 2016.

Tesla has been in business since 2003. Show me a comment from 10 years ago of musk complaining about subsidies.

You know , you're right! I had my timelines mixed. I do still think that elon musk's companies get singled out quite strongly when they take advantage of the subsidies that a lot of these companies take part in, to much higher degree. I guess his companies bear so much vitriolitic commentary, it's hard to distinguish actual valid criticism from the other things.

man, I have to respect the guy's PR team.

> It is risky basing too much of a business on tax credits and rebates.

This is/was an open secret not only in the solar industry but the entire renewable/clean energy industry ( wind, geo, etc ). These solar companies existed solely because of government support and everyone knew that once the government support was pulled, these companies would immediately be bankrupt.

The first solar companies to fall were those based in germany/uk/spain when european governments pulled the solar subsidies. Followed by the solar companies in the US. Even the chinese solar companies are struggling now.

But the biggest problem going forward for the solar/wind/etc industry is low oil/gas prices. But even with the most optimistic projections, solar would be a relatively small portion of global energy source even by 2050.

I’ve been with a bunch of smaller companies and have seen layoffs as well as been laid off before/during and after mergers.

Not sure why this should be surprising in the case of Tesla + Solar City.

Because the purported reason for the firings don't add up. Usually in a merger, the combined company simply says what everyone already knows, there's redundancies.

It's mostly of note precisely because they are not layoffs according to Tesla. They were full on fired with cause. It's strange to say the least. What would trigger a mass firing like that. It's unusual.

I'm a SolarCity customer and absolutely despise them. Their customer service makes Comcast look like a saint. I can't help but cross my fingers this is a sign Tesla might be doing something about it. But I'm not getting too hopeful.

I had them come by for a quote. I never bothered to put their numbers in to compare to other offers because it was a terrible experience. I have no idea if they are even working on changing that, or just pivoting to industrial installations.

I am pretty pro-union. However, in the case of Musk's enterprises, where there is this larger goal that is finally seeming to become possible, I am torn. I feel that anyone that works at these places should know and be a zealot for the Cause...but I suppose that Elon Musk probably should share his stakes with them a bit more, in that case.

edit: I believe workers should be treated fairly, but I also want us to go to Mars. If 1 prevented 2, I would be torn. Why should this earn a negative vote?

The ends justify the means, eh?

Sometimes, indeed yes. Not always. If you want to live in a black and white world go ahead. Best of luck to you.

In any case, as I said, I am torn. That is why I advise that anyone that works for them be dedicated to the cause. Because while a lot of startups and the like profess to "change the world" Elon Musk's enterprises ARE changing the world to the kind of world I want to live in. Sometime visions need sacrifices.

That said, Elon Musk should probably offer non-insubstantial stakes in the company to every worker.

Scott Alexander had a blog post recently discussing "moral offsets" and the distinction between axiology, morality, and law. It helped clarify my own mental framework and vocabulary for thinking through these sorts of "do the ends justify the means?" issues. I found it to be interesting food for thought and you may feel likewise, it's a very thought-provoking read (as is nearly everything on Scott's site).

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/28/contra-askell-on-moral-...

Thanks for the link. Indeed a post for thought.

Which cause?

Employees are free to convert their paycheck into stocks. The better they (as a whole) do, the more profit each gets.

Not if they are not being paid enough to have the capital to invest. That is why I suggested that in lieu of increased pay, that workers be further compensated in more stock

They are being paid enough to invest.

Then what is their complaint exactly?

If they're not paid enough to invest, they probably need that extra compensation in cash. If they're smart enough to work at Tesla, they're smart enough to invest as they see fit.

Maybe the negative votes are from the workers you would consider treating unfairly in that scenario. That is also reasonable.

Well given two polarized positions, expressing sympathy for both positions makes twice the enemies, and half the friends.

How dare you try to introduce subtlety and nuance to our inflexible, ideological worldviews!

> edit: I believe workers should be treated fairly, but I also want us to go to Mars. If 1 prevented 2, I would be torn. Why should this earn a negative vote?

I assume because this same argument, if you took it to ridiculous extremes, could be used to justify a whole range of terrible shit. Watch:

"I believe workers should not be enslaved, but I also want us to go to Mars. If 1 prevented 2, I would be torn."

"I believe Musk should not torture underperforming workers, but I also want us to go to Mars. If 1 prevented 2, I would be torn."

I don't think you are actually willing to torture or enslave people so that humanity can get to Mars, but the way you constructed your argument leads in that direction, which is probably why it's being met with resistance.

I am not trying to create an axiom meant to generalize to all cases. I am just willing to be a little less pro-union (and this point has gotten lost here apparently) than I am usually when it comes to THIS set of companies, for very particular reasons. That is because I tend to think of these companies (at least SpaceX) more as causes than as companies. When you willingly work for a cause, you expect these things. If you are fighting to treat victims of war near battlefields, you might get be indanger, and the organization might not be able to do much about it, or provide you the kinds of benefits that would be deserving in a perfect world.

Noble causes don't tend to be for profit entities. If SpaceX was a charity or not for profit I'd agree, but it's a business and it is hurting the workers to accumulate more capital for the owners. It's goal of getting to Mars is nice but a separate set of moral concerns as long as it is attempting to maximize profit

> However, in the case of Musk's enterprises, where there is this larger goal that is finally seeming to become possible, I am torn. I feel that anyone that works at these places should know and be a zealot for the Cause...

While critics often mock the “cult” of Musk, his defenders usually deny the characterization. You rarely see such an explicit acknowledgment and endorsement of it.

The honesty is refreshing, I guess, even if the content is appalling.

'Cult of Musk' suggests it is about Musk, and not about the cause (of going to Mars).

I think we can all agree that some types of work are dangerous and poorly paid, but people choose to do it because they believe in a cause. For example, relief work in war-zones. I just tend to think of Space-X as a geeky way of doing that.

I'm not sure the hundreds of domestic solar manufacturer employees who suddenly discovered they were "underperforming" yesterday are likely to agree that humanity's chances of reaching Mars are contingent on their mute acceptance of the dangers to their livelihoods of such such capricious management...

> 'Cult of Musk' suggests it is about Musk, and not about the cause (of going to Mars).

Cults are usually devoted to a cause external to the cult leader, in the service of which the leader is seen as a uniquely visionary or inspired leader.

I believe there are a host of other companies striving for the same goal, being SpaceX the loudest one.

While I do commend Musk's role in getting change within industries, it can't be argued that his biggest strength over the last decade has been only PR (and I mean only!). Do some digging and see how he chooses to release news bits, diversions etc and holds on to the mastermind billionaire ideal that people bestowed upon him. Any other company making false promises ("Auto"pilot), providing factually incorrect data (Model 3 "mass" production), mass firings ("performance" layoffs) would not survive in the world. Musk just dumbs down science to his cult and they swallow it up. Remind you of anyone else? (hmmmm... Trump - different audience of course but similar cult following characteristics).

Tesla responding to lawsuits by former employees claiming they suffered racial discrimination and anti-LGBT threats (in The Guardian): “There is no company on earth with a better track record than Tesla.”

Trump, March 2016: "Nobody knows more about trade than me."

Don't think any other person/entity give out such absolute statements routinely.

> SolarCity employees say they were surprised to be told they were fired for performance reasons, claiming Tesla had not conducted performance reviews since acquiring the solar energy business.

Is it possible the performance reasons cited may have been in reference to performance in sales rather than performance in work? Otherwise it does seem odd to dismiss over employee performance if reviews has yet to be conducted by Tesla.

Call layoffs "firing" to look good in stock market and not have to pay severance packages... Elon is smart for sure

I dunno, my Tesla stock just took a big dump. Maybe I should sell.

Does anyone know if the reason Tesla gave is interfering with the newly fired collecting unemployment? There are certain types of firing that would stop someone from being able to collect unemployment.

At Solar City, sales must be down if they're closing entire offices.

or redundant if they're using their Tesla stores to sell solar panels after the merger

I wonder if the ideas of centralised layoffs based on performance reviews is even a good idea at all, especially for anything other than manual labor and the like.

>Some of the firings came in big group employee meetings.

WOW. Great place to work. Yet gives a shit when their stock is like 60% up YTD, right? /s

If there was one division at Tesla that deserved lay-offs, surely it was SolarCity?

I remember how everyone was talking about what a bad move Tesla made in acquiring SolarCity, because the company was a mess and unprofitable.

I've also heard stories about how aggressive and pushy SolarCity's sales people were with customers, which ended-up giving the company an increasingly worse reputation.

Solar City was doing fantastic here in Las Vegas. There sales people were BY FAR the best when they came door to door.

But Warren Buffet's power company changed the laws last year and basically screwed everyone who had solar. We have completely disincentivized putting solar panels up.

Now the company doesn't do well, and no sales people come door to door from any company. If you are putting up solar in Las Vegas this year, its because you are an extreme environmentalist and willing to pay the penalty that comes with it.

How did the laws change?

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/solarcity-stop...

>>The PUC “has effectively shut down the rooftop-solar industry and taken the extraordinary step to punish over 12,000 existing solar customers, including schools, with exorbitant fees in what appears to be an attempt to protect the profits of the state’s largest utility. All three members of the PUC, who voted unanimously to change the rules, were appointed by Governor Sandoval.”

>>Rive said: “Most disturbing is the PUC’s decision to retroactively sabotage existing solar customers’ investments by changing the rules on them. The Nevada government encouraged these people to go solar with financial incentives and pro-solar policies, and now the same government is punishing them for their decision with new costs they couldn’t have foreseen. These actions are certainly unethical, unprecedented, and possibly unlawful. While the rest of the country embraces a clean energy future, Nevada is moving backwards.”

Net metering isn't even a US law thing, it's a physics law thing. Just basic physics should tell you that selling power for the same price you buy it doesn't make sense due to heat loss in the lines.

If you want a battery buy one, don't try to use the grid as a giant battery.

Potentially the net metered electricity doesn't have to travel as far. Maybe it goes to the house next door.

That said, it makes sense to steeply adjust the rate if the net metering starts causing long distance flows.

I did a quick search and it looks like Wikipedia has a reasonable summary:

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

At issue was whether or not homes with solar could sell their electricity at the retail rate or the wholesale rate. There was conflict between Buffet and Musk because Buffet owns the power company NV Energy whereas Musk works in the business of solar. All that said, it looks like AB 405 moves pretty closely back to the old system where solar customers can sell power back at 95% of the retail rate.

Anyway, power is and probably should be tightly regulated. It's worth having an open conversation as to how much money a solar customer should be paid for selling power onto the grid just like we have regulations for all of the other power producers. That doesn't mean they have to be the same regulations, but setting and moving the rate number isn't inherently good or bad.

That got rolled back recently:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/07/531952407/...

Would you mind sharing a little bit more about Buffet's power company? Which one is it. Would love to read more about this.

Penalty?

It's much more like no more free money from folks who can't afford solar subsidizing rich folks who can.

Net-metering is a regressive tax. Rich folks with rooftop solar already get a huge massive benefit in the free battery the grid supplies them overnight - reducing their install costs by 5 figures - and they continue to demand horrible policy like net metering. It's been decades now, it's time to end the practice.

Folks with solar were not "screwed" - they simply stopped having non-solar customers subsidize their power usage as much as they were before.

Personally I plan on putting up my own solar/battery install so I can live off grid as needed during power outages. I would find it immoral to then demand the power company pay me retail rates for any excess power I generate. I find it problematic for me to even be connected to the grid for my "emergency use" as it's clearly a highly subsidized backup power source for me at that point.

Edit: I'm okay with an ends-justify-the-means approach to net metering. However, it absolutely cannot be a long term policy as it's exceedingly regressive in nature. Using it as a short-term subsidy to bootstrap an industry is fine. That goal has been accomplished, and it's time to end these transfer payments.

This seems at minimum possible. The general consensus at the time of the SolarCity acquisition was something like "that's a failing venture, but the products and manufacturing capacity are relevant to Tesla". And now we've seen Powerwall synced up with SolarCity tech, but no major leaps forward for SolarCity itself.

Would it be all that surprising if this was a move to quietly wind down SolarCity as a separate concern in favor of using it as a smaller feed-in to Tesla?

(If anyone actually knows more internals there, I'd be fascinated to hear.)

The new solar roof thing from Solar City may or may not end up being a major leap forward, but it is a product of the Tesla merger.

Not very quietly, SolarCity as a separate brand has been wound down already, it's marketed as Tesla Energy now.

Has anyone else noticed a PR smear campaign against Tesla?

It can be explained by the usual press cycle. Once something becomes famous enough, they are automatically a news hook. Any surprising news about them (positive or negative) gets clicks.

Anyone else? You haven’t even noticed it. Unless, you want to cite some examples

Blame the Russians. They seem to have the right intersection of effective propaganda machinery and oil interests.

SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity: ponzi schemes that have a little tech behind them and pull on our heartstrings.

...can you give any context on how that applies to SpaceX?

I think you're overstating the case for all three, because Tesla is a normal company that may or may not succeed, and SolarCity isn't a Ponzi scheme but simply a business dependent on regulatory decisions (like most every solar company).

But the inclusion of SpaceX there is frankly baffling to me; it's a completely different business model only tied to the others by Musk's involvement. And their "little tech" has involved at least two major achievements no one else has ever come close to. Maybe they lose to Orbital or NASA stops outsourcing or something, but "sometimes companies fail" is a far cry from "Ponzi scheme".

Ponzi schemes don't produce major technological advancement.

SpaceX made reusable rockets a thing.

Tesla made great cars with bleeding-edge EV technology.

SolarCity made "solar roof" a viable & aesthetic product.

All three are still thriving on a lot of tech advancement.

Long-term success remains to be seen in three very difficult industries, but current performance is certainly not the facades of Ponzi schemes.

> SpaceX made reusable rockets a thing.

The space shuttle was reusable. It just wasn't cost-effective. So far, SpaceX hasn't proven their resuable rocket is cost-effective either.

> Tesla made great cars with bleeding-edge EV technology.

Model X ranked dead last in reliability: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/consumer-reports-survey-m...

Model S owners have also complained about reliability and build quality problems.

I don't know much about SolarCity as a business, but the Tesla buyout has a lot of sketchy signs about it https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/18/solarcity-teslas-s...

I don't necessarily think Musk's companies are literally "Ponzi schemes", but they are less impressive than the hype surrounding them, and they all rely heavily on government subsidies.

I just wish HN would take the same critical eye to Musk that it does toward other business luminaries. It seems like far too many people are easily seduced by "Mars colony! Hyperloop! Rocket around the world!"

There are tons of people on HN who post negative things on every thread related to Musk. Where's the problem?

Comparing the shuttle glider to the boosters of the Falcon is completely inaccurate. Compare the SRBs and the main booster.

And yes, I think SpaceX has been working constantly to reduce cost of reuse of their boosters. Do YOU have proof, given their track record of improvements, that they are anywhere near as expensive as the Shuttle in terms of launch costs?

> Tesla made great cars with bleeding-edge EV technology.

What "bleeding-edge" EV tech? Tesla hasn't made a single "bleeding-edge" contribution to EV tech.

> SolarCity made "solar roof" a viable & aesthetic product.

That's why solar city went bankrupt and had to be "bailed out" by musk?

> All three are still thriving on a lot of tech advancement.

SpaceX, tesla nor solar city made a SINGLE contribution to tech advancement. SpaceX hasn't made a single contritubion. They are rehashing DECADES old tech. Tesla hasn't made a single contribution. And solar city went bankrupt and had to be bailed out - just like tesla 10 years ago.

> What "bleeding-edge" EV tech? Tesla hasn't made a single "bleeding-edge" contribution to EV tech.

They proved that an all-electric car is viable. While certainly not an advancement in the truest sense of the word since we already had Li-Ion batteries and large electric motors, it was definitely a contribution.

Hyperloop could conceivably be a scam, but SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity are much too real to be ponzi schemes.

A Ponzi scheme is essentially a investment that promises you a too good to be true return (ex:10% per month). It is actually paid by late investors, unless you "reinvest" it. It is typically backed by promises : shares of a company that doesn't produce anything yet, land that will supposedly become extremely valuable, etc...

The companies you cited have nothing in common with Ponzi schemes. While profitability is debatable, they have real customers and produce real goods and services. They also don't promise you anything in term of ROI. Of course, Elon Musk will tell you his companies are the best, but that's just standard advertising.

Hyperloop is a Glomaresque front for digging tunnels of unknown purpose. The fact that the second site is in Maryland should raise eyebrows.

If they are scams, it's a different form of scam than a Ponzi scheme.i think they are all subject to unreasonable hype, but that's different than a scam.

You do know that "Ponzi scheme" has a very precise definition, right? It isn't a generic term for a scam.

In any case, Tesla/SolarCity/SpaceX definitely aren't scams. Go ride in a Model S and see how much of a "scam" it is. Go watch videos of SpaceX rockets returning to Earth and landing vertically and gently so they can easily be reused and try to call it a scam.

- It's not mass firing. It's not even 4% of the workforce.

- So, employees were "surprised". As most people who are fired, ever, in any company and epoch. How is this news at all?

- Recalling 11,000 units might not at all be connected with layoffs. Implying otherwise is a cheap yellow press journalism.

- "Citing fears of retaliation from Tesla". Yeah, because Tesla definitely is known for pursuing people like they're some kind of a cold-war era vengeful spy agency. Sure.

- Some layoffs came 2 weeks early. Wow. Scandalous!

- Somebody made the mistake of over-stating how much personnel a new office is gonna have. Surely, this is news-worthy, right?

- Exact number of people laid off is unknown so hey, I have a genius idea, let's listen to the former employees who are now negatively biased against the company. I mean, they can't be wrong, could they?

And then the company tries to minimize the chance of former employees suing them. That's relatively normal if somewhat scummy, sadly it's a pretty classic state of affairs. Hardly exclusive to Tesla, though.

This "tech reporter" would do well to work with paparazzi. It'll match her journalistic expertise.

"Mass layoff" is defined by the United States Department of Labor as 50 or more workers laid off from the same company around the same time.

Might be legally correct. Still gives the wrong impression because most people aren't lawyers. Should outline percentage, not absolute numbers, IMO.

If the unemployment rate increased 3.6% tomorrow, I guess you wouldn't think it's a big deal, right? After all, it's not even 4%! The lack of sympathy people show these days. Sheesh.

It's one company out of hundreds of thousands.

You did not address all of my criticisms of the article which are logically sound -- you only cherry-picked one emotional point.

> It's one company out of hundreds of thousands.

> You did not address all of my criticisms of the article which are logically sound -- you only cherry-picked one emotional point.

I'm not attempting to address whatever point you were trying to make.

I'm glad you replied the way you did, since that was my point.

The fact remains this was a sensationalist piece.

People lose jobs every day. Happened to me 20+ times in the last 10 years and was hard. I don't see value in comments like yours saying "you need to be more compassionate". What you are missing is that I am -- but that doesn't help anybody.

And, again, the article was of extremely low quality and it seemed to have been pushing an agenda.

Most employees aren't surprised when they're fired.

Thats indicative of terrible management.

In a healthy organization managers let individual contributors know when they're falling behind, and give them the opportunity and guidance to get on track.

...And?

How does that debunk my criticism of that very amateur level of journalism showed in the article?

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