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Tesla sued by ex-employees who claim that mass layoffs violated federal law
- birdyrooster 4y ago
- olddustytrail 4y agoWell, before it gets started, perhaps you could answer something. Since Elon Musk is a fairly controversial figure, I've got to assume that in the USA people are divided along traditional Republican/ Democrat lines. So, which ones hate him and which think he's great? From an outside perspective it could go either way so I have no idea.
- mwint 4y agoOversimplified cliff notes: Currently, mostly democrats hate him. In no specific order, some points of the ongoing feud: - Musk leaving California and decrying its regulatory state - Biden inviting everyone except Tesla to the White House and congratulating them on “leading the way” wrt. EVs - Some Democrats picking a fight with him on Twitter (IIRC over the California stuff), and him saying he “ends fights” Culminating in Musk voting Republican, supposedly for the first time, in a recent minor election. He’s also becoming more vocal about support for Republican figures like DeSantis, and that he thinks the left has gone “too far left.”
- birdyrooster 4y agoDude tried to pick Microsoft products over OSS for PayPal and went AWOL which is why they booted him. He’s not an engineer’s engineer. Supporting military coup against Bolivian president (who was proven innocent of guilt afterwards) and then tweeting non chalantly that “he can coup whoever he wants” and to “deal with it”. His own daughter is estranging from him because he is a nightmare parent. He has lied for about 10 years about self driving cars. People have died because of Elon’s lies. I know dozens of engineers in my circle that won’t buy Tesla or Space-X anything because of Elon. The only people who handwave his social ills are Texas republicans who fight for his scraps. They have a dim view of the world and so he fits in perfectly as a thought leader.
- mwint 4y agoI don’t doubt that he’s a poor parent, he’s ridiculously focused on work. Know a good source on the Bolivia thing?
- birdyrooster 4y agoHe tweeted in response. Elon is the source, but he blocked me because I said that I can’t wait for him to die so I can’t link you.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- boeingUH60 4y ago> Elon is the source, but he blocked me because I said that I can’t wait for him to die so I can’t link you. Not a Musk fan…but that is a horrible thing to say to someone, especially someone not an active threat to your life.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
- kbelder 4y agoWorse that what Musk said, obviously. Righteous indignation is a powerful drug.
- niea_11 4y agohttps://mobile.twitter.com/RWTrollPatrol/status/1518957284914720773/photo/1 https://mobile.twitter.com/RWTrollPatrol/status/151895728491...
- throwawaylinux 4y agoThat's the joke tweet, the important part of the claim is that prior to the tweet he "supported" the coup. How did he support it and what is the evidence for that?
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoIt isn't that simple, of course. A lot of Techy democrats still like him (but then so do just as many techy Democrats hate him). Many Republicans outside of business and tech fields have no idea who he is. I get the feeling that in the long run, his political affiliation is just not that important, like with most tech billionaires (perhaps BillG votes blue, but can anyone really say who Bezos votes for without doing a search on the web?).
- rayiner 4y agoRead the Fox News comments on Twitter’s board approval of the takeover. It’s not just tech and business Republicans. At this point, Republicans just like anyone willing to stand up to progressives instead of cowering.
- tptacek 4y agoExcept, strangely, for Biden.
- rayiner 4y agoBiden doesn’t stand up to progressives on culture, which is the real flash point for Republicans. He would be more popular if he went on a Van Jones style rant: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CStMEd_CNpY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CStMEd_CNpY
- tptacek 4y agoI saw that too, and liked it, but Biden doesn't routinely use the word "Latinx" (it was a whole news cycle when he did), and ran on increasing funding to the police. He won the primary on the Black vote; I tend to think he understands the center of the Democratic party better than most.
- forgingahead 4y agoWhy do you think the progressives have achieved such sway over cultural issues within the Democrat party? It seems like an unnecessary albatross for them to carry, instead of just jettisoning that to a woo-woo 3rd party. I suspect they would be unbeatable in elections if they got rid of that baggage.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago> - Biden inviting everyone except Tesla to the White House and congratulating them on “leading the way” wrt. EVs I'm no Musk fan (though I am a Tesla owner), but I always thought this was ridiculous. If ANY company should be given credit for leading the way on EVs, it's Tesla. Other manufacturers started making EVs, but until recently, the buying process was awful. There were a lot of stories of people going to dealerships and trying to buy an EV and the salespeople would steer them towards an ICE. They don't want to sell you an EV because their maintenance department doesn't profit as much off of them.
- penneyd 4y agoAgreed, the constant Tesla snubbing by the Biden administration is embarrassing. For all Elon's problems there is no denying that Tesla is an American success story that changed the auto industry.
- martin8412 4y agoTesla could just allow their employees to unionize and they'd have been invited
- KerrAvon 4y agoSupport for anti-science bigots like DeSantis should be a dealbreaker for anyone, regardless of political affiliation. It speaks to Musk being a unserious person.
- decafninja 4y agoI see him as just selfish first and foremost. He acts for the benefit of himself (and his ego) first and foremost. If liberals are favorable towards that end, he will support them. If conservatives are, then he’ll support them. Even supposedly altruistic missions like “making humans a multi planetary species” is grounded in the objective of enhancing his ego.
- vba616 4y agoThere are plenty of reasons for small-C conservatives to increasingly dislike him (they may be largely Democrats though). He created the appearance that the Texas AG is someone he can sic on people. He's created the appearance that he can personally destroy individual federal regulators who offend him. At the moment, he's demagoguing the so-called "Twitter bot issue" - relying on most people not understanding that with a little reading comprehension, Twitter can report their 5% figure and their overall users can be 95% bots without any logical conflict at all. The fact that he's doing this, as opposed to completing the acquisition in a normal manner is extremely ominous.
- birdyrooster 4y agoHe supported the coup of Bolivian president to steal Lithium from the people there. No Democrat or Republican who learns about how Elon actually behaves supports him. It’s mostly just PR AstroTurf.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 4y agoRepublicans inclined to like Musk absolutely don’t care about that.
- zionic 4y ago>He supported the coup of Bolivian president to steal Lithium from the people there. Hyperbole. It was _clearly_ a joke tweet. You're making it sound like he armed revolutionaries lol
- birdyrooster 4y agoThat’s not a joke at all. It’s a very real thing which happened in an attempt to benefit Elon (and others in the industry) and him making light of it in a public way doesn’t make it better. It’s precisely the disgusting behavior we come to expect of plundering billionaires.
- zionic 4y ago> It’s a very real thing which happened in an attempt to benefit Elon I’m sorry but fuck off with this nonsense. Your argument starts from the oil-shill root that lithium is somehow rare or expensive. Lithium is cheap and abundant, we don’t need to conquer foreign countries for it. A Tesla with 400mi has like 6kg of lithium in it. I’m really quite sick of these pseudo-intellectual arguments on this website.
- birdyrooster 4y agoLithium is actually rare because of how little lithium is concentrated together and requires a lot of earth to process which means you want cheap land and cheap labor… thus the exploitation of South America. Please stop projecting your own intellectual insecurity, it is nothing more than an attempt to shut down conversation.
- mtnGoat 4y agoInteresting and fairly accurate observation about the US and our politics. In my experience, Musk is an anomaly though, he is hated by folks all across the spectrum. I think libertarians and people that like watching him upset others are his biggest fans.
- fundad 4y agoHe’s Republican and behaves in the mold of Trump
- jokethrowaway 4y agoInitially democrats liked him, nowadays republicans like him. Showing climate change virtue vs crypto and freedom of speech... it's definitely a hard choice.
- gist 4y agoReally not a big deal. Worse case scenario pay them for 60 days. Best case scenario the amount they pay them as severance counts toward the 60 days. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/eta/warn/faqs.asp https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/eta/warn/faqs.asp
- lnxg33k1 4y agoAre you sure? That would be quite bad, I am no american, but I think if breaking the law and being caught would put you in the same spot of those not trying the law, it would be quite a incentive in trying to break the law, I think in order to make it fair there should be some penalty? Otherwise why other companies would not try to take the same approach and then just floor courts with this kind of lawsuit?
- aluminum96 4y agoFor those who haven't clicked through to this piece (or the many others running today), we are not just talking about high-paid engineers. Tesla laid off hourly factory workers with only one week notice, citing "performance reasons" despite not having given any performance warning in most cases. Seems to be a pretty flagrant case of disguising layoffs as performance-related firings. The best part: apparently, to get the one-week "severance," they have to sign releases. At this point, is anyone really surprised?
- bamboozled 4y agoI’m not surprised because it’s easy to be such a highly valued company when you’ve cut a hell of a lot of corners!
- givemeethekeys 4y agoThis is incredible to me. I'd love for someone to articulate what their thought process was to lay off in such a manner. 1. The 1 week severance is a negative incentive to signing anything at all. 2. Providing any reason other than, "thank you for your service" is asking for a lawsuit, especially when the severance is so weak. What were they actually thinking?