{"id":36668,"date":"2022-11-23T00:03:51","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T05:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=36668"},"modified":"2022-11-23T00:03:51","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T05:03:51","slug":"read-the-internal-tesla-employee-survey-from-2018-where-employees-called-elon-musk-an-unapproachable-tyrant-who-fires-people-because-of-his-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=36668","title":{"rendered":"Tesla employee survey calls Elon Musk an &#8216;unapproachable tyrant&#8217; who fires people &#8216;because of his ego&#8217; &#8211; Autoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><figcaption>\n  <span class=\"copyright\">Andrew Kelly\/Reuters<\/span><br \/>\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul class=\"summary-list\">\n<li><a class=\"injectedLinkmain\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/tesla\/\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:0;\">Tesla<\/a> employees complained about <a class=\"injectedLinkmain\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/tag\/elon+musk\/\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:1;\">Elon Musk&#8217;s<\/a> leadership and culture in a 2018 survey obtained by Insider.<\/li>\n<li>The survey flagged compensation, &#8220;Elon and exec team,&#8221; and &#8220;care about the company&#8217;s employees&#8221; as high risk areas.<\/li>\n<li>The survey was referenced on the first day of testimonies in a shareholder lawsuit against Musk.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An internal 2018 Tesla worker survey conducted during a trying period for the company reveals employees voiced concerns about Elon Musk&#8217;s leadership.<\/p>\n<p>The survey, which Insider obtained and is publishing in full for the first time, was referenced last week in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-tesla-pay-package-compensation-salary-lawsuit-court-battle-2022-11?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:2;\">lawsuit<\/a> against the billionaire over his more than $50 billion compensation package.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#8217;s former chief people officer, Gabrielle Toledano, sent the survey to Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis, who chairs the company&#8217;s compensation committee, on March 2, 2018. In her email, Toledano identified two key issues employees said they were facing: concerns over compensation and concerns about leadership at Tesla, particularly around Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Review of employee survey results,&#8221; Toledano said in the email. &#8220;Not good on comp, esp from VPs, and not good on leadership, mostly about Elon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the survey of Tesla professionals, managers, executives, and directors, a total of 65% of those polled said they trusted Musk and the executive team to &#8220;balance employee interests with those of the company.&#8221; 67% said they believe Musk and his executives &#8220;care about the company&#8217;s employees.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A total of 58% of employees at the professional level or higher said they felt &#8220;fairly compensated&#8221; for their work.<\/p>\n<figure>\n <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"grp-full lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/insider_articles_922\/8edb77bee050c87886ab6d238ffcaa60\" alt=\"A screenshot from Tesla's 2018 employee survey\" data-uuid=\"8ba27f43-c258-31d4-98ff-ee74ef418375\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><figcaption>\n   A screenshot from Tesla&#8217;s 2018 employee survey, showing favorability responses from Tesla professionals, managers, executives, and directors.<br \/>\n  <span class=\"copyright\">Insider<\/span><br \/>\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A selection of responses about Elon Musk and his executive team showed employees complaining about his company culture, leadership, approachability and communication, work timelines, and firings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tesla is hemorrhaging highly talented, ferociously driven people who truly believe in the company&#8217;s vision and continue to hope for its success,&#8221; wrote one worker in the survey. &#8220;Elon is a technical leader of the highest order, and yet is widely seen as an unapproachable tyrant who devalues the contributions of the staff, and may fire them on a whim &#8230; we treat people, the fundamental unit of a company, like any other expendable resource.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The worker added that Tesla &#8220;fails to distinguish between technical leadership and people leadership,&#8221; calling it an &#8220;ugly part of Tesla&#8217;s culture.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure>\n <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"grp-full lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/insider_articles_922\/fa619edeeb9493753e54ae2f1f95e9da\" alt=\"A screenshot of a page from Tesla's 2018 employee survey, showing comments about &quot;Elon and Exec Staff&quot;\" data-uuid=\"2aa845b1-926f-3073-b44a-33352a787d70\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><figcaption>\n   A screenshot of a page from Tesla&#8217;s 2018 employee survey, showing comments about &#8220;Elon and Exec Staff&#8221;<br \/>\n  <span class=\"copyright\">Insider<\/span><br \/>\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Another worker wrote that they felt &#8220;at any point I or anyone around me will be fired,&#8221; saying they weren&#8217;t planning on sticking around much longer in an &#8220;extremely toxic environment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One worker said Musk&#8217;s &#8220;ego&#8221; needed to change, while another said people were being &#8220;bullied by Elon into making unrealistic commitments.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, at the time the survey was taken, Tesla was struggling to scale production of its <a class=\"injectedLinkmain\" href=\"https:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/tesla\/model+3\/\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:3;\">Model 3<\/a>. Years later, Musk <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/11\/03\/musk-tesla-was-about-a-month-from-bankruptcy-during-model-3-ramp.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:4;\">said<\/a> Tesla was just weeks away from bankruptcy during the ordeal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Watching the crushing blow of the ramp and team demoralization of the Model 3 battery has been extremely disheartening,&#8221; one worker wrote in the survey. &#8220;More so the blame placed by Elon and the Exec team on lower level engineers without owning any accountability to the poor level of design review, non-reality based scheduling and in-sufficient resource allocation has lead me to lose all trust in Elon as a leader of this company.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite several negative comments about Musk, 98% of surveyed employees indicated they were &#8220;proud of the impact Tesla is making in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The survey was cited last week during the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-tesla-pay-package-compensation-salary-lawsuit-court-battle-2022-11?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:5;\">first day of testimonies<\/a> in a Tesla shareholder&#8217;s lawsuit against Musk over his pay package, which alleged Musk and the automaker breached their fiduciary duties by awarding compensation that was &#8220;beyond the bounds of reasonable judgment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The email was cited as potential evidence that the Tesla CEO was a &#8220;threatening&#8221; figure to Tesla staff, including the executives in charge of approving his pay package.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Musk and a Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Ehrenpreis agreed in court that the quotes were &#8220;consistent with a long history of how some people felt.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The billionaire has long been known for his intensity. At Tesla and SpaceX, he has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-launch-every-week-on-track-space-2022-1?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:6;\">pushed for lofty goals<\/a>\u00a0and has even been known to work as much as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-dangers-of-overwork-2018-8?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:7;\">120 hours a week<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-said-he-slept-on-tesla-factory-floor-to-maximize-suffering-2018-7?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:8;\">sleep on the factory floor<\/a>. Former executives have said the billionaire can be a difficult person to work for, prone to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/tesla-elon-musk-ruthlessly-fired-anyone-who-disagreed-spacex-report-2021-8?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:9;\">bouts of anger<\/a>\u00a0and even instances of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-reportedly-terrified-tesla-staff-with-his-firing-sprees-2018-12?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:10;\">rage-firing employees<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 allegations he has adamantly denied, calling them \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1421150913075503112?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:11;\">&#8220;false&#8221; on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-solar-city-trial-never-rage-fired-tesla-employees-2021-7?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:12;\">saying he gives &#8220;clear and frank&#8221; feedback<\/a>\u00a0to employees.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, Musk <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/twitter-staff-slam-elon-musk-did-you-bother-to-learn-2022-11?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:13;\">fired<\/a> several Twitter employees last week after the engineers criticized Musk&#8217;s technical knowledge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read the full survey:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"insider-raw-embed\">\n<p style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; display: block;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View Tesla 360 Employee Survey 2018 on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/affiliate.insider.com?postID=6372a2b1ba755645b2555cbc&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fdocument%2F609505788%2FTesla-360-Employee-Survey-2018%23from_embed&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:14;\">Tesla 360 Employee Survey 2018<\/a> by <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View Grace Kay's profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/affiliate.insider.com?postID=6372a2b1ba755645b2555cbc&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fuser%2F642121752%2FGrace-Kay%23from_embed&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=yahoo.com\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:15;\">Grace Kay<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n<p> <iframe id=\"doc_41394\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" title=\"Tesla 360 Employee Survey 2018\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/609505788\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;access_key=key-skDGW2u8EpCsq9TenbbP\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\">[embedded content]<\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Do you work at Tesla or for Elon Musk? Contact the reporter from a non-work email at gkay@insider.com<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-original\">\n  Read the original article on<br \/>\n <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/tesla-employee-survey-elon-musk-leadership-culture-compensation-complaints-2022-11\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0;pos:1;sec:donut-hole;cpos:16;\">Business Insider<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Kelly\/Reuters Tesla employees complained about Elon Musk&#8217;s leadership and culture in a 2018 survey obtained by Insider. The survey flagged compensation, &#8220;Elon and exec team,&#8221; and &#8220;care about the company&#8217;s employees&#8221; as high risk areas. The survey was referenced on the first day of testimonies in a shareholder lawsuit against Musk. An internal 2018 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}