"A signing bonus or sign-on bonus is a sum of money paid to a new employee by a company as an incentive to join that company.
To encourage employees to stay at the organization, there are often clauses in the contract whereby if the employee quits before a specified period, they must return the signing bonus."
She has a list of grievances not just the signing bonus. I think if Tesla had shown her husband a bit more respect she likely wouldn't have posted it.
Giving someone 0-day notice and physically escorting them out of the company is simply unacceptable.
This is a pretty common practice, especially when dismissing employees that work with sensitive information (e.g. architecting trade secrets), or work in public-facing positions (e.g. spokesperson or PR). It avoids the risks found in the question of "what will this person do when they know they're on their way out?".
I have sympathy for the couple in that it’s really tough to lose a job you just moved for but unfortunately that’s just kinda life. It doesn’t seem to me a Twitter rant solves anything other than marking one’s self as a potential headache to other employers.
But layoffs were coming and probably known, that was out of the employee's control. Pay the damn bonus as goodwill.
Does a company want a reputation of "yeah they hired me but unfortunately with cutbacks I was new, but they made good on their promises even though I hadn't been there long enough"
Or "they hired me, enticed me with a signing bonus and then didn't bother making good, fuck that company"
I don't care if the contract specifically allowed that, it will leave a bitter taste in that employee's mouth. And it will be repeated regardless of the original contract. Reputation matters more than some line in a contract.
It sounds like it wasn't a one time payment, but rather a monthly addition. It makes complete sense to retract that after firing.