Elon Musk said he wanted to “be”absolutely hardcoreEarlier this week there was talk of cutting Tesla’s workforce, and it looks like he’s gone into full “demon mode.” his biographer calls it. Now an unlikely cohort is feeling his wrath: Tesla’s summer interns. College students shared how Musk’s cost-cutting efforts caused their summer plans to implode, first reported by Bloomberg Wednesday.
“I will no longer be interning at Tesla this summer,” said someone at North Carolina State University University student on LinkedIn Thursday, who posted a month ago that he had received an offer. “After a single phone call of less than two minutes, my entire plan for this summer disappeared as if it had never existed.”
“When I was in the middle of the final, I received unexpected news,” he said another post from a new Tesla intern who also posted about it months earlier receive an offer. “The timing couldn’t have been worse.”
“Just a few weeks ago I received my offer to do an internship at Tesla starting in May,” said another post. “I was recently informed that my internship offer was withdrawn due to the company’s #mass layoffs.”
These LinkedIn posts and several others tell a painful story about the human consequences of Tesla’s cost-cutting efforts. Tesla’s summer 2024 internship course was set to begin in just a few weeks as many students completed their final exams at colleges across the country. These students say they have already arranged housing, booked flights and turned down other offers to work at Musk’s car company over the summer. Tesla says it takes on more than 3,000 college students as interns every year Impact report 2022.
The dismantling of Tesla’s internship program is part of broader layoffs at the company. Musk fired the entire 500-person team Tesla’s Supercharger network this week. Days earlier, the group was reportedly assured by a senior executive that Musk believed their team was vital to the company. Last month Tesla announced 14,000 employees would be laid off after a dismal earnings report revealed disappointing car sales.
Tesla interns earn about $35 an hour, according to data compiled by employees As a matter of fact. They are likely the company’s lowest-paid employees, so it’s unclear how much Tesla will actually save from the job cuts. Her firing is more of a sign of Musk’s recent attitude change at Tesla. He recently said in a memo seen by that all employees must “pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test.” The information.
Tesla has set itself a big task in the coming months. The company must make progress new, cheaper EV models At the same time, we are preparing a new robotaxi for a presentation in August. Meanwhile, Musk continues to advance his autonomous driving efforts, which are increasingly becoming a necessary part of Tesla’s future business model. Musk seems to be hoping that a small team of hard-working employees will get the job done, but that apparently doesn’t include summer interns.