Electric-vehicle leader Tesla (TSLA) -) has catapulted Chief Executive Elon Musk into worldwide stardom and made him the richest man in the world.
That said, the cost of that success may have been fallen to his employees.
In an Aug. 16 podcast on the Verge, "Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave," new interviews with Tesla employees reveal an in-depth look at the traumatic experience of working for Musk.
"What I saw was, you know, a lot of people sleeping on the floor, people working 10-12 hours a day, six to seven days a week," one anonymous employee said.
A second said that being fired could be as easy as catching Musk on a bad day.
"Let's say you drop something. Let's say you do something wrong. You're getting fired on the spot 'cause Elon's coming out of a room, looking dead at you, and firing you," he said.
This by itself is not new. Musk has ascribed Tesla's success to "excruciating effort -- 100-hour weeks, by everyone." This was also seen in action from Esther Crawford, the Twitter employee whose story went viral, as she was sleeping on the floor of Twitter HQ only to be laid off in February 2023.
Working long hours is a hallmark of startup culture, which is what Tesla once was, and is clearly not for everyone. But other troubling experiences that went far beyond 10-hour days were related.
"My supervisor called me the N-word," said ex-Tesla employee Melvin Barry, who worked at the EV company between 2015 and 2016. "Right in front of other co-workers." Barry took the matter to human resources but didn't find much help. When he tried to escalate his complaints, he claims, his workload was elevated.
Women who experienced both racial and sexual harassment also reported asking for help from HR and not getting it. One claimed to have had a "hot industrial tool" thrown at her while being called the N-word.
Tesla dissolved its PR department in 2020. TheStreet is unable to request comment.
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