Tesla's Interns Reportedly Feeling the Wrath of Elon Musk
Elon Musk said he wanted to be “absolutely hardcore” about reducing Tesla’s headcount earlier this week, and it looks like he’s entered full “demon mode,” as 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 imploded their summer plans, first reported by Bloomberg Wednesday.
“I will no longer be interning at Tesla this summer,” said one North Carolina State University student on LinkedIn Thursday, who posted a month earlier that he’d received an offer. “After a single phone call of less than two minutes, my entire plan for this summer had vanished as if it had never even existed.”
“While I was in the middle of finals, I got an unexpected message,” said another post from an incoming Tesla intern, who also posted months earlier about receiving an offer. “The timing couldn’t have been worse.”
“It was only a couple of weeks ago that I received my offer to intern with Tesla starting this May,” said another post. “I was recently informed that my internship offer was being rescinded due to the company’s #masslayoffs.”
These LinkedIn posts, and several others, tell a painful story about the human consequences of Tesla’s cost-cutting efforts. Tesla’s Summer 2024 intern class was supposed to start in just weeks, as many students finished up final exams at colleges around the country. These students say they had already made housing accommodations, booked flights, and turned down other offers to work the summer at Musk’s car company. Tesla accepts more than 3,000 college students as interns every year, according to its 2022 Impact Report.
The dissolution of Tesla’s intern program is part of broader layoffs at the company. Musk laid off the entire 500-person team operating Tesla’s Supercharger Network this week. The group was reportedly reassured days earlier by a senior executive that Musk thought their team was critical to the company. Last month, Tesla announced 14,000 employees would be laid off after a dark earnings report revealed disappointing car sales.
Tesla interns make roughly $35 an hour, according to employee-reported data compiled by Indeed. They’re likely the lowest-paid employees at the company, so it’s unclear how much Tesla will really save by cutting them. Their removal is more likely a sign of Musk’s latest attitude change at Tesla, recently saying that all staff would need to “pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test,” in a memo viewed by The Information.
Tesla has given itself a tall task in the coming months. The company needs to make progress on new, cheaper EV models while also preparing a new robotaxi for an August showcase. Meanwhile, Musk continues to push his autonomous driving efforts, which are increasingly becoming a necessary part of Tesla’s future business model. Musk appears to hope that a small team of hardworking employees will get the job done, but apparently, that does not include the summer interns.