Tesla Fired 300 Janitors And Bus Drivers While Musk’s Wealth Grew By $650 Million In April

We’ve been documenting the ongoing fire drill that is Tesla throughout the course of this pandemic. Most recently, we reported that workers at the company’s Fremont factory could be heading back in to work before the county’s stay-at-home order expires.

…what’s left of the company’s workers, that is. 

We also reported days ago that Tesla had furloughed a majority of its workers and instituted pay cuts until the end of Q2. Now, The Sun is reporting that the company has laid off “close to 300 janitors and bus drivers” while Elon Musk has seen his personal wealth grow by $650 million and Tesla’s stock rebounded from its coronavirus lows. 

Google, Apple and Facebook continue to pay workers in the same positions as those laid off from Tesla, the report notes.

Dianne Solis, the vice president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, which represents 11,000 janitors in northern California said: “Early on we had most tech giants, Google, Facebook, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, all committed to keep workers on or offering continued pay and benefits in the case of layoffs. We were hoping Tesla would follow suit but they are an outlier.”

Esther Garcia Servin, a single mother with two children who worked for Tesla, commented: “This is having a devastating effect on workers, who are low wage workers and not seen. They’re subcontracted and that’s the way Tesla tries to remove any responsibility. Many of these workers have chronic conditions like diabetes and don’t have healthcare. There are no other jobs out there right now, and these workers don’t know how they’ll pay May rent or put food on the table.”

Servin said she could not afford to pay May rent as a result of being laid off.

To pay this collective of workers for 12 weeks at a rate of $15, it would cost Tesla about $2.016 million, The Sun estimated. That works out to about 0.3% of the $650 million in net worth CEO Musk has tacked on in April. 

Maria Noel Fernandez, campaign director at the grassroots community organization, Silicon Valley Rising, concluded: “Elon Musk is making a conscious decision to say Tesla doesn’t care about its contractors. Musk is saying ‘we’re not standing by our workers and their communities.’ And he could afford it. It’s a decision.”