I believe that in this particular case a contractor could be a company of couple hundred (or 1000s) people or so, producing a sub-part of a car. Car makers most

I believe that in this particular case a contractor could be a company of couple hundred (or 1000s) people or so, producing a sub-part of a car. Car makers mostly just put the car together - they do not manufacture parts. Which begs the question: can Tesla afford to fire contractors? R&D on complex parts takes years, even at Tesla ...