- Tesla has laid off workers who only started at the company months or even weeks ago.
- An intern had his full-time offer rescinded, while a recruiter was let go after just two weeks.
- One manager said Tesla threatened to cut off health insurance if he refused the severance package.
Tesla workers who started their jobs only months or even weeks ago have been let go while others have had offers withdrawn as the company begins to impose cuts announced by Elon Musk in early June.
Insider found a number of posts from Tesla employees who said they'd been laid off as part of the cut, while others had their job offers rescinded.
Paul Brotherton, a senior project manager who had only started in January, told Insider: "I was very shocked when I was told that I was being let go. Being a manager, I was under the impression that my position was safe."
Asked how Tesla had decided which roles to cut, he said: "They said that layoffs were based on performance reviews but that is a lie because I had only been at Tesla for 5 months and had yet to have performance goals set or a performance review. I asked what metrics they used and they refused to tell me."
"The process definitely was not fair because I was never given the team that I requested."
Brotherton said the whole process was very cold: "My manager would not look at me or shake my hand when I said goodbye."
He added that "the severance package was very unfair, as they basically force you to accept by threatening to cut off medical insurance."
Iain Abshier, who was part of the recruiting team, said on Tuesday in a LinkedIn post: "Damn, talk about a gut punch. Friday afternoon I was included in the Tesla layoffs after just two weeks of work."
Robert Belovodskij had his job offer as a manufacturing controls development engineer" rescinded. He said: "The timing of the situation is also unfortunate as I was due to start in early August."
At the start of June Musk told Tesla executives to pause all hiring because he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and needed to cut 10% of the company's workforce. However, he later tweeted that the headcount would increase, but the number of salaried staff would not rise.
Mansi Chandresha started at Tesla in February as a data analyst and posted on LinkedIn after learning she was being cut: "I have been trying to gather myself to the news that my position with Tesla was terminated."
Nevertheless she added: "I am grateful for the fact that I got an opportunity to work with a fantastic team."
Chandresha said she was urgently seeking a new role before her student visa expired at the end of July.
Two former employees are suing the company claiming the electric carmaker violated federal law by laying off hundreds of employees on short notice.
John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, who filed the lawsuit, said at least 500 of their coworkers in Nevada lost their jobs at around the same time, the document showed.
Insider found at least 11 more workers whose jobs had been cut. More are likely to suffer a similar fate as Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum last week that reduction would take effect over the next three months.