10 ms·

Tesla Rescinds Job Offer

125 points by cmmn_nighthawk 5y ago

jlawer 5y ago
I am unfamiliar with the US employment law, but isn't the job offer a contract? Therefore I am assuming you would still be compensated, and its simply a matter of finding your next gig? Or is this as simple as the offer could be modified and therefore your shafted?
- _wldu 5y ago
  In America, you're basically on your own. Unless you have a lot of cash and social connections and can afford expensive lawyers, there's not much you can do.
- snotrockets 5y ago
  In most of the US, employment is "at will" [sic], meaning your employment can be terminated any time for any, or no cause.
  - throwaway158497 5y ago
    Also, emoployees can leave company any time. And they leave companies on short notices! Cuts both ways!
    - snotrockets 5y ago
      But you may not get good refs (necessary for future employment) if you try to play by the same rules as the employer and give no notice. Even if the mandatory notice period is equal, the power balance isn't.
      - Rebelgecko 5y ago
        I think the asymmetry goes both ways. If you leave a job under bad circumstances, maybe a half dozen people will hear about it in the future (and even that might be over counting... I've worked at places where you're not allowed to say anything other than "yes that person worked here worked here with that job title"). On the other hand, Charlie's ref about how Tesla treats prospective employees has been seen by thousands of people.
        snotrockets 5y ago
        This post is going to cost Tesla sourcers a few rejected calls, a small change for them. It cost a person 6+ weeks of unemployment. There’s never a balance between employee and employer, and it is always tilted towards the employer.
      - darkhorse22 5y ago
        > good refs (necessary for future employment) Unnecessary if you have chops. Interviewing a candidate's references is a sucker move anyway.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      Are there actually countries where employees can't quit if they want to?
      - Taniwha 5y ago
        There are places where you must give a certain amount of notice, some countries (Germany I think) expect people to change jobs at particular times of the year (like only at a quarter)
      - throwaway158497 5y ago
        Govt employees in India can't really quit at will. You need something called no objection certificate. For some reason that I don't understand, even software engineers give 1-2 months notice.
        selimthegrim 5y ago
        There is some letter SWEs need from their manager there - I can’t remember what they call it
      - tylerwhipple 5y ago
        When I was working in France you legally had to give 3 months notice to quit. I think there are ways around this notice period in certain situations.
        pkaye 5y ago
        What happens if you just walk out? Any kind of penalty?
        Chico75 5y ago
        Financial penalties can apply: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://www.coindusalarie.fr/contrats-travail/preavis-demission&prev=search&pto=aue https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https:/...
    - void_mint 5y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted for stating a fact. It may not be a good idea to leave on short notice, but employees are well within their rights to quit same-day or same-minute.
- timy2shoes 5y ago
  It depends. Say in the case where you quit your current job, or move, or anything where you've spent or lost money based on a promise of a job, then you might be able to recover money on the basis on Promissory estoppel: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  Sometimes you can claim promissory estoppel but decades of anti-labor laws usually mean you're out of luck.
- jopsen 5y ago
  Even in Denmark with lots of employee protections... The first 3 weeks is usually a trial phase where you can be fired with short notice. Though people rarely are...
- pkaye 5y ago
  Most jobs are "at-will employment" in the US so they can dismiss you any time and the employee can leave at any time. A decent company would try to find an alternate position in the company given that a person had just quit their old job.
1cvmask 5y ago
This is an interesting comment on the Linkedin page: In my experience, This is actually not that surprising, don’t find yourself cornered by such situations, always get offers more than one and then keep them on their edge until you have joined. Such is corporate life.
- cbsks 5y ago
  Yeah, that doesn’t match my expectation at all. Does that commenter think that you should always have multiple job offers before giving notice to your current job?
  - cercatrova 5y ago
    Yes? Isn't the common advice that you should have multiple offers in hand before giving notice? Or do you give notice without an offer?
    - babelfish 5y ago
      The middle ground here, and what most people do, is giving notice when you have one (1) offer in hand. You shouldn't need multiple
      - cercatrova 5y ago
        Do you not negotiate between companies who've given you offers? That's standard advice for tech workers that I've heard and used.
        benhurmarcel 5y ago
        It's unlikely to get several offers being in negotiation at the same time. If you manage to do it it's obviously better, but hard to synchronize.
    - stormbrew 5y ago
      If you're hoping to negotiate a counter from your current employer maybe you should have multiple, it probably gives you a stronger hand. If you're leaving either way why would you? And this isn't about 0 offers vs. many, it's 1 offer vs. many.
snotrockets 5y ago
Tesla is a horrible employer? Shocking news! Next you'll tell me the sun is hot, or that elephants are quite big.
- jacob2484 5y ago
  Anything to back up your statement? I know a few folks who love working there.
  - Judgmentality 5y ago
    I know lots of folks who hate(d) working there. Just adding my anecdata to yours.
    - Fezzik 5y ago
      Most people I know hate working anywhere, so that always seems like a bad metric to me on whether an employer is “good”…
      - hodgesrm 5y ago
        At least one bar I know has a sign like the following in front: Hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody and it meets inside. (I guess you had to be there.)
    - deadmutex 5y ago
      I also heard that many people would look forward to leaving after the final vesting of their initial stock grant. I remember going to someone's Tesla work anniversary party, and his teammates were like "I really hope they stay, we typically lose people after these milestones".
      - jsnell 5y ago
        Wait, what? Work anniversary parties are a thing? For single digit years, and inviting people not part of that work group to? (Like, I can understand maybe having some cake around at somebody's 30 year work anniversary, or something like that. But you appear to be describing something very different from that.)
throwaway158497 5y ago
If he were let go on first day of new job, would he be happy? It is an at will employment, got to just accept it and move on. Tesla doesn't care why you took up the job. May be you wanted to follow your passion or may be you wanted to feed your family. Musk doesn't care. That is the beauty of capitalism. Without everybody else worrying about why you took up a job, we have built an economic system that doesn't let anyone starve but infact has higher standard of living than non capitalist companies.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  > an economic system that doesn't let anyone starve I don't think this is accurate.
  - forbiddenvoid 5y ago
    It's not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
    - throwaway158497 5y ago
      I would argue that it is a distribution problem. United states produces tons and tons of food and wastes even more. Just looking at Pumpkin blasting during Haloween makes my blood boil, but it is what it is.
      - mcphage 5y ago
        > Just looking at Pumpkin blasting during Haloween makes my blood boil, but it is what it is. Those large pumpkins aren’t good for eating.
- senkora 5y ago
  Tesla is allowed to screw him like this, but it is appropriate that he makes that fact known in a public forum and causes commensurate reputational damage to Tesla.
jedberg 5y ago
If he wanted to, he could probably sue Tesla for tortious interference of his previous job, since he gave notice at the previous job because of them. Also, it really sucks that Tesla didn't offer him severance given that he was effectively laid off. Hopefully he can at least get unemployment.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  It's sad that to address his issue he probably has to burn down any and all opportunity with Tesla.
  - sundaeofshock 5y ago
    Given his public posting, I suspect he is not too worried about future opportunities at Tesla.
    - jschwartzi 5y ago
      Given how they've treated him I wouldn't be particularly worried either.
  - infamouscow 5y ago
    It's sad, but I think the bridge was burned when Tesla rescinded the offer. Tesla could have just as well had Charlie start on a different team, but that's not what happened.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- GiorgioG 5y ago
  He would lose 99.999% of the time thanks to `at will` employment.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    It's part of an implied contract however. Unless you know of some court cases where people lost because of it.
jopsen 5y ago
The two times I started a new job it seems the position I was interviewed for, and the team I ended up joining was somewhat different... Because of shifting priorities, etc. such is life in a living organization. But neither employer rescinded their offer. Retracting a job offer is not normal. Stories like this will discourage people from joining Tesla. And in reality Tesla could easily find a position for an extra engineer.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > But neither employer rescinded their offer. Retracting a job offer is not normal. Yeah, I've heard of canceling job offers right before they've been sent to the candidate, but canceling them after they've been sent is unusual. I think that may even open up the employer to some legal liability (promissory estoppel, IIRC).
- muzani 5y ago
  I think this is the norm for most companies. Companies spend a lot of time and money filtering candidates. Unless they're asking for a lot higher than market rate, many larger companies are usually happy to upskill someone to a different u role.
presidentender 5y ago
This happened to me in college in the fall of 2008. I accepted a software development position with a local consulting firm and quit my on-campus job, only to find out that my new position no longer existed a few days later. I ended up finding another job with a competitor before my two weeks ran out, but it was a worrisome time. Later I reviewed a spec from a new customer's previous consulting firm, with whom they had just parted ways due to no progress on the application. That previous firm was the one that had hired-me-but-not-really. It was a brief moment of vindication.
PeterBannon 5y ago
The same thing happened to me in late 2018. I was hired to write a compiler for deep learning (training) on Tesla's in-house hardware, under Peter Bannon. I resigned from the job I had at the time, and Tesla backed out of the contract shortly before my start date. Tesla is ruthless.
- jschwartzi 5y ago
  Isn't this promissory estoppel? Like they promised that you would start at a certain date, causing you to quit your current job. Then they withdrew the promise, causing you to be unemployed.
  - ffhhj 5y ago
    A clever tatic to remove key employees from competitors.
    - xtracto 5y ago
      Right. You can promise whatever exhorbitant amount of money, perks and projects that dont exist . One day before the start date you just rescind the fictional offer. This is so unethical there should be a 1 or 2 month "deposit" for these cases haha
      - prirun 5y ago
        It seems reasonable to me that this would work just like a house offer: if the offer is accepted, it should be the basis of a contract where the new hire pays if he/she backs out, and the company lays you off with severance if they back out.
      - AstralStorm 5y ago
        Or you could just ask them to put the offer in writing before changing jobs. In which case, you have a proper cause for a lawsuit much better than trying for implied contract.
      - 5y ago
monoideism 5y ago
Organizations pick up the morals/ethics of their leadership, and this is Tesla...
paxys 5y ago
This is sadly a lot more common than people realize. It's drilled in your head that as an employee you should never ever renege on a job offer or accept a better one too soon because you are "burning bridges" and that is very bad, but it never works the same the other way around. Budgets change all the time. Departments go through reorgs. Projects get cancelled. "Hey but we have an open job offer" is never going to be a concern for management when making these decisions, nor should it for you.
- arduinomancer 5y ago
  Its crazy how people are worried about offending trillion dollar companies.
  - jvolkman 5y ago
    I think they're more worried about impacting their own chances of working at those companies in the future.
- FartyMcFarter 5y ago
  > but it never works the same the other way around. I see your point, but then again maybe it does, if anyone reads about this episode and decides not to risk joining Tesla as a result. Especially if they do this too much and get a reputation for it.
- eloff 5y ago
  Yeah, been there, done that. I turned down my other offers and then the one I accepted cancelled on me the night before my first day of work. I ran out of money and had to take a loan from a friend. I ended up working for them later anyway. No point holding a grudge.
  - adamcstephens 5y ago
    It’s not about holding a grudge, it’s a loss of trust. If an employer did this to me, I wouldn’t trust them to not fuck me over in other ways as an employee.
alephnan 5y ago
Maybe there was a miscommunication in HR and realized he was “not the right minority” https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/05/22/eugene-chung-says-nfl-team-told-him-hes-not-the-right-minority-in-job-interview/ https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/05/22/eugene-chun...
kerng 5y ago
Had a similar experience with Google a few months back - very disappointing how some companies play with people's future.
- alephnan 5y ago
  Not saying Google is special, but never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence The whole pipeline with temp recruiters at Google could be one explaination
- doopy1 5y ago
  My experience interviewing there sucked. I found their whole process to be rushed and invasive. At the end of the whole thing I was told by the recruiter that the team and manager loved me and I'd have a written offer the following week. I was then invited to come have lunch with a member of the team (it was pretty casual). A couple or so days later I got a call from the recruiter saying that hiring committee rejected my packet and was given 0 feedback. Here's the thing about interviewing at a company like Google: the people who you meet with and interview you literally have NO pull to influence whether you ultimately get hired or not - it all comes down to a committee that judges you based on how you look on paper.
  - throwaway6194 5y ago
    > it all comes down to a committee that judges you based on how you look on paper. To be fair this is a good way to mitigate bias in hiring. In any case, I haven't heard of people getting a signed job offer retracted due to a reorg.. there are lots of stories of great candidates not getting hired.
    - doopy1 5y ago
      It just introduces other bias. "Everyone says this guy killed his interviews, but looks like he doesn't have a college degree... pass!"
  - kerng 5y ago
    Yeah, I passed commitee with flying colors according to recruiter back then - but 2 weeks later someone/somewhere decided otherwise... lol not sure what actually happened
bradgranath 5y ago
"Right" to work gives Tesla an obligation to screw their workforce to boost profits. The end.
coliveira 5y ago
Tesla being lead by that person, what could you expect from the company?
cosmotic 5y ago
At the very least, Tesla should pay the author for the time between the hire date through until two weeks after the notice the position was eliminated. Also, it's not like they couldn't use another SWE. Unless the applicant was a specialist, I see no reason they couldn't just train for another position doing similar work, unless the application would prefer not to. From now on, employees should feel very comfortable leaving Tesla with zero notice.
readonthegoapp 5y ago
Being an advocate for Taiwan starting to be worse for your career than being an advocate for Palestine. Ask John Cena.
CogitoCogito 5y ago
Note to self: Don't leave a job for Tesla unless they give me a big signing bonus.
abunuwas 5y ago
From the post it's unclear whether Tesla made a signed offer, or just sent the offer without signature. If the latter, there's probably not much that can be done about it. That kind of thing actually happened A LOT last year, and LinkedIn was full of people warning you to make sure you get a signed offer before you give notice in your current job. In the middle of the pandemic, many people went unemployed because of this. Now, if the offer was signed, I'd imagine the contract had some terms and both the employer and the employee have to abide by the terms of the contract. As a candidate, you can reject an offer in the last minute, even if you accepted it, as long as you didn't sign it. But once you sign the piece of paper, you've got liabilities. There'll be a notice period and other things. And the same goes for the employer. I guess even in the US companies have liabilities towards their employees? I'd think if this candidate passed an interview with Tesla, he won't have much trouble finding another role. It's always more difficult when you're unemployed, but you can always build leverage by applying to multiple companies, get multiple offers, and let them compete for you. Then again, NEVER turn an offer down until you're all signed with one of the potential employers and ready to start. If you can, don't even turn the other offers down until you've already started the new job. And when you decline the offer, do so in good terms making it clear that you'd like to consider working for them in the future (you can be fired anytime).

I am unfamiliar with the US employment law, but isn't the job offer a contract? Therefore I am assuming you would still be compensated, and its simply a matter of finding your next gig? Or is this as simple as the offer could be modified and therefore your shafted?

_wldu 5y ago
In America, you're basically on your own. Unless you have a lot of cash and social connections and can afford expensive lawyers, there's not much you can do.
snotrockets 5y ago
In most of the US, employment is "at will" [sic], meaning your employment can be terminated any time for any, or no cause.
- throwaway158497 5y ago
  Also, emoployees can leave company any time. And they leave companies on short notices! Cuts both ways!
  - snotrockets 5y ago
    But you may not get good refs (necessary for future employment) if you try to play by the same rules as the employer and give no notice. Even if the mandatory notice period is equal, the power balance isn't.
    - Rebelgecko 5y ago
      I think the asymmetry goes both ways. If you leave a job under bad circumstances, maybe a half dozen people will hear about it in the future (and even that might be over counting... I've worked at places where you're not allowed to say anything other than "yes that person worked here worked here with that job title"). On the other hand, Charlie's ref about how Tesla treats prospective employees has been seen by thousands of people.
      - snotrockets 5y ago
        This post is going to cost Tesla sourcers a few rejected calls, a small change for them. It cost a person 6+ weeks of unemployment. There’s never a balance between employee and employer, and it is always tilted towards the employer.
    - darkhorse22 5y ago
      > good refs (necessary for future employment) Unnecessary if you have chops. Interviewing a candidate's references is a sucker move anyway.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Are there actually countries where employees can't quit if they want to?
    - Taniwha 5y ago
      There are places where you must give a certain amount of notice, some countries (Germany I think) expect people to change jobs at particular times of the year (like only at a quarter)
    - throwaway158497 5y ago
      Govt employees in India can't really quit at will. You need something called no objection certificate. For some reason that I don't understand, even software engineers give 1-2 months notice.
      - selimthegrim 5y ago
        There is some letter SWEs need from their manager there - I can’t remember what they call it
    - tylerwhipple 5y ago
      When I was working in France you legally had to give 3 months notice to quit. I think there are ways around this notice period in certain situations.
      - pkaye 5y ago
        What happens if you just walk out? Any kind of penalty?
        Chico75 5y ago
        Financial penalties can apply: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://www.coindusalarie.fr/contrats-travail/preavis-demission&prev=search&pto=aue https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https:/...
  - void_mint 5y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted for stating a fact. It may not be a good idea to leave on short notice, but employees are well within their rights to quit same-day or same-minute.
timy2shoes 5y ago
It depends. Say in the case where you quit your current job, or move, or anything where you've spent or lost money based on a promise of a job, then you might be able to recover money on the basis on Promissory estoppel: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel
bigbillheck 5y ago
Sometimes you can claim promissory estoppel but decades of anti-labor laws usually mean you're out of luck.
jopsen 5y ago
Even in Denmark with lots of employee protections... The first 3 weeks is usually a trial phase where you can be fired with short notice. Though people rarely are...
pkaye 5y ago
Most jobs are "at-will employment" in the US so they can dismiss you any time and the employee can leave at any time. A decent company would try to find an alternate position in the company given that a person had just quit their old job.

1cvmask 5y ago

This is an interesting comment on the Linkedin page: In my experience, This is actually not that surprising, don’t find yourself cornered by such situations, always get offers more than one and then keep them on their edge until you have joined. Such is corporate life.

cbsks 5y ago
Yeah, that doesn’t match my expectation at all. Does that commenter think that you should always have multiple job offers before giving notice to your current job?
- cercatrova 5y ago
  Yes? Isn't the common advice that you should have multiple offers in hand before giving notice? Or do you give notice without an offer?
  - babelfish 5y ago
    The middle ground here, and what most people do, is giving notice when you have one (1) offer in hand. You shouldn't need multiple
    - cercatrova 5y ago
      Do you not negotiate between companies who've given you offers? That's standard advice for tech workers that I've heard and used.
      - benhurmarcel 5y ago
        It's unlikely to get several offers being in negotiation at the same time. If you manage to do it it's obviously better, but hard to synchronize.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    If you're hoping to negotiate a counter from your current employer maybe you should have multiple, it probably gives you a stronger hand. If you're leaving either way why would you? And this isn't about 0 offers vs. many, it's 1 offer vs. many.

snotrockets 5y ago

Tesla is a horrible employer? Shocking news! Next you'll tell me the sun is hot, or that elephants are quite big.

jacob2484 5y ago
Anything to back up your statement? I know a few folks who love working there.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  I know lots of folks who hate(d) working there. Just adding my anecdata to yours.
  - Fezzik 5y ago
    Most people I know hate working anywhere, so that always seems like a bad metric to me on whether an employer is “good”…
    - hodgesrm 5y ago
      At least one bar I know has a sign like the following in front: Hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody and it meets inside. (I guess you had to be there.)
  - deadmutex 5y ago
    I also heard that many people would look forward to leaving after the final vesting of their initial stock grant. I remember going to someone's Tesla work anniversary party, and his teammates were like "I really hope they stay, we typically lose people after these milestones".
    - jsnell 5y ago
      Wait, what? Work anniversary parties are a thing? For single digit years, and inviting people not part of that work group to? (Like, I can understand maybe having some cake around at somebody's 30 year work anniversary, or something like that. But you appear to be describing something very different from that.)

throwaway158497 5y ago

If he were let go on first day of new job, would he be happy? It is an at will employment, got to just accept it and move on. Tesla doesn't care why you took up the job. May be you wanted to follow your passion or may be you wanted to feed your family. Musk doesn't care. That is the beauty of capitalism. Without everybody else worrying about why you took up a job, we have built an economic system that doesn't let anyone starve but infact has higher standard of living than non capitalist companies.

bigbillheck 5y ago
> an economic system that doesn't let anyone starve I don't think this is accurate.
- forbiddenvoid 5y ago
  It's not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
  - throwaway158497 5y ago
    I would argue that it is a distribution problem. United states produces tons and tons of food and wastes even more. Just looking at Pumpkin blasting during Haloween makes my blood boil, but it is what it is.
    - mcphage 5y ago
      > Just looking at Pumpkin blasting during Haloween makes my blood boil, but it is what it is. Those large pumpkins aren’t good for eating.
senkora 5y ago
Tesla is allowed to screw him like this, but it is appropriate that he makes that fact known in a public forum and causes commensurate reputational damage to Tesla.

jedberg 5y ago

If he wanted to, he could probably sue Tesla for tortious interference of his previous job, since he gave notice at the previous job because of them. Also, it really sucks that Tesla didn't offer him severance given that he was effectively laid off. Hopefully he can at least get unemployment.

threatofrain 5y ago
It's sad that to address his issue he probably has to burn down any and all opportunity with Tesla.
- sundaeofshock 5y ago
  Given his public posting, I suspect he is not too worried about future opportunities at Tesla.
  - jschwartzi 5y ago
    Given how they've treated him I wouldn't be particularly worried either.
- infamouscow 5y ago
  It's sad, but I think the bridge was burned when Tesla rescinded the offer. Tesla could have just as well had Charlie start on a different team, but that's not what happened.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
GiorgioG 5y ago
He would lose 99.999% of the time thanks to `at will` employment.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  It's part of an implied contract however. Unless you know of some court cases where people lost because of it.

jopsen 5y ago

The two times I started a new job it seems the position I was interviewed for, and the team I ended up joining was somewhat different... Because of shifting priorities, etc. such is life in a living organization. But neither employer rescinded their offer. Retracting a job offer is not normal. Stories like this will discourage people from joining Tesla. And in reality Tesla could easily find a position for an extra engineer.

tablespoon 5y ago
> But neither employer rescinded their offer. Retracting a job offer is not normal. Yeah, I've heard of canceling job offers right before they've been sent to the candidate, but canceling them after they've been sent is unusual. I think that may even open up the employer to some legal liability (promissory estoppel, IIRC).
muzani 5y ago
I think this is the norm for most companies. Companies spend a lot of time and money filtering candidates. Unless they're asking for a lot higher than market rate, many larger companies are usually happy to upskill someone to a different u role.

presidentender 5y ago

This happened to me in college in the fall of 2008. I accepted a software development position with a local consulting firm and quit my on-campus job, only to find out that my new position no longer existed a few days later. I ended up finding another job with a competitor before my two weeks ran out, but it was a worrisome time. Later I reviewed a spec from a new customer's previous consulting firm, with whom they had just parted ways due to no progress on the application. That previous firm was the one that had hired-me-but-not-really. It was a brief moment of vindication.

PeterBannon 5y ago

The same thing happened to me in late 2018. I was hired to write a compiler for deep learning (training) on Tesla's in-house hardware, under Peter Bannon. I resigned from the job I had at the time, and Tesla backed out of the contract shortly before my start date. Tesla is ruthless.

jschwartzi 5y ago
Isn't this promissory estoppel? Like they promised that you would start at a certain date, causing you to quit your current job. Then they withdrew the promise, causing you to be unemployed.
- ffhhj 5y ago
  A clever tatic to remove key employees from competitors.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    Right. You can promise whatever exhorbitant amount of money, perks and projects that dont exist . One day before the start date you just rescind the fictional offer. This is so unethical there should be a 1 or 2 month "deposit" for these cases haha
    - prirun 5y ago
      It seems reasonable to me that this would work just like a house offer: if the offer is accepted, it should be the basis of a contract where the new hire pays if he/she backs out, and the company lays you off with severance if they back out.
    - AstralStorm 5y ago
      Or you could just ask them to put the offer in writing before changing jobs. In which case, you have a proper cause for a lawsuit much better than trying for implied contract.
    - 5y ago

monoideism 5y ago

Organizations pick up the morals/ethics of their leadership, and this is Tesla...

paxys 5y ago

This is sadly a lot more common than people realize. It's drilled in your head that as an employee you should never ever renege on a job offer or accept a better one too soon because you are "burning bridges" and that is very bad, but it never works the same the other way around. Budgets change all the time. Departments go through reorgs. Projects get cancelled. "Hey but we have an open job offer" is never going to be a concern for management when making these decisions, nor should it for you.

arduinomancer 5y ago
Its crazy how people are worried about offending trillion dollar companies.
- jvolkman 5y ago
  I think they're more worried about impacting their own chances of working at those companies in the future.
FartyMcFarter 5y ago
> but it never works the same the other way around. I see your point, but then again maybe it does, if anyone reads about this episode and decides not to risk joining Tesla as a result. Especially if they do this too much and get a reputation for it.
eloff 5y ago
Yeah, been there, done that. I turned down my other offers and then the one I accepted cancelled on me the night before my first day of work. I ran out of money and had to take a loan from a friend. I ended up working for them later anyway. No point holding a grudge.
- adamcstephens 5y ago
  It’s not about holding a grudge, it’s a loss of trust. If an employer did this to me, I wouldn’t trust them to not fuck me over in other ways as an employee.

alephnan 5y ago

Maybe there was a miscommunication in HR and realized he was “not the right minority” https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/05/22/eugene-chung-says-nfl-team-told-him-hes-not-the-right-minority-in-job-interview/ https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/05/22/eugene-chun...

kerng 5y ago

Had a similar experience with Google a few months back - very disappointing how some companies play with people's future.

alephnan 5y ago
Not saying Google is special, but never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence The whole pipeline with temp recruiters at Google could be one explaination
doopy1 5y ago
My experience interviewing there sucked. I found their whole process to be rushed and invasive. At the end of the whole thing I was told by the recruiter that the team and manager loved me and I'd have a written offer the following week. I was then invited to come have lunch with a member of the team (it was pretty casual). A couple or so days later I got a call from the recruiter saying that hiring committee rejected my packet and was given 0 feedback. Here's the thing about interviewing at a company like Google: the people who you meet with and interview you literally have NO pull to influence whether you ultimately get hired or not - it all comes down to a committee that judges you based on how you look on paper.
- throwaway6194 5y ago
  > it all comes down to a committee that judges you based on how you look on paper. To be fair this is a good way to mitigate bias in hiring. In any case, I haven't heard of people getting a signed job offer retracted due to a reorg.. there are lots of stories of great candidates not getting hired.
  - doopy1 5y ago
    It just introduces other bias. "Everyone says this guy killed his interviews, but looks like he doesn't have a college degree... pass!"
- kerng 5y ago
  Yeah, I passed commitee with flying colors according to recruiter back then - but 2 weeks later someone/somewhere decided otherwise... lol not sure what actually happened

bradgranath 5y ago

"Right" to work gives Tesla an obligation to screw their workforce to boost profits. The end.

coliveira 5y ago

Tesla being lead by that person, what could you expect from the company?

cosmotic 5y ago

At the very least, Tesla should pay the author for the time between the hire date through until two weeks after the notice the position was eliminated. Also, it's not like they couldn't use another SWE. Unless the applicant was a specialist, I see no reason they couldn't just train for another position doing similar work, unless the application would prefer not to. From now on, employees should feel very comfortable leaving Tesla with zero notice.

readonthegoapp 5y ago

Being an advocate for Taiwan starting to be worse for your career than being an advocate for Palestine. Ask John Cena.

CogitoCogito 5y ago

Note to self: Don't leave a job for Tesla unless they give me a big signing bonus.

abunuwas 5y ago

From the post it's unclear whether Tesla made a signed offer, or just sent the offer without signature. If the latter, there's probably not much that can be done about it. That kind of thing actually happened A LOT last year, and LinkedIn was full of people warning you to make sure you get a signed offer before you give notice in your current job. In the middle of the pandemic, many people went unemployed because of this. Now, if the offer was signed, I'd imagine the contract had some terms and both the employer and the employee have to abide by the terms of the contract. As a candidate, you can reject an offer in the last minute, even if you accepted it, as long as you didn't sign it. But once you sign the piece of paper, you've got liabilities. There'll be a notice period and other things. And the same goes for the employer. I guess even in the US companies have liabilities towards their employees? I'd think if this candidate passed an interview with Tesla, he won't have much trouble finding another role. It's always more difficult when you're unemployed, but you can always build leverage by applying to multiple companies, get multiple offers, and let them compete for you. Then again, NEVER turn an offer down until you're all signed with one of the potential employers and ready to start. If you can, don't even turn the other offers down until you've already started the new job. And when you decline the offer, do so in good terms making it clear that you'd like to consider working for them in the future (you can be fired anytime).