Hacker News Reader

Comment by mandeepj | Hacker News Reader

7 points·mandeepj··7 comments

> Some of those who are being asked to return were laid off by mistake. Others were let go before management realized that their work and experience may be necessary to build the new features Musk envisions

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. This suggests he may truly be as clueless as he appears.

This exact thing happened at a previous job of mine. All workers at a specific site were laid off and later management had to hire back some very important workers who had been working there.

If they are on garden leave until Feb 2 with full pay and benefits, there could be a weird email which says "to keep your pay and benefits we need you to come and do work for us".

I don't understand how to integrate sources that say everyone was locked out of work but is still on payroll with sources that describe what happened as layoffs.

It seems like telling everyone "please keep working but we will have layoffs on Feb 2" would have made more sense, get some labor for the money spent?

It seems unfair to blame Elon for some number of "mission critical" people being let go. It's highly unlikely he sat down and crafted the list himself...

He set a direction and it was executed, many layers of individuals were likely involved.

Note: I'm not a Musk fanboy, nor am I a hater. We can settle for relatively impartial.

> He set a direction and it was executed

The direction absolutely should have included both initial high-level criteria and more detailed final sign-off on functions thar were being eliminated.

It is commonplace at many large companies to require top C-level executives approve each new hire personally (even if it's only a brief [mostly] formality). No reason it shouldn't be the same for terminations, especially large-scale ones.

I know Google and Oracle both operate this way.

Tough for Elon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com