--- title: "Tesla Staff Didn’t Know They Were Laid Off Until They Tried to Enter the Building" description: "Some Tesla workers didn't find out they'd been laid off until they showed up to work Monday morning and were locked out." date: "2024-04-16" modified: "2024-04-16" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-staff-locked-out-layoffs" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "labor" - "layoffs" - "tesla" - "the digest" --- # Tesla Staff Didn’t Know They Were Laid Off Until They Tried to Enter the Building ![Some Tesla workers didn't find out they'd been laid off until they showed up to work Monday morning and were locked out.]() *\Image: Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty / Futurism\* ## Lock It Getting laid off is bad enough, but finding out that you've been sacked by being denied entry to the building where you work is another thing entirely. According to multiple former and current Tesla workers who [spoke to *Business Insider*](), some employees sacked in Tesla's [mass layoffs this week]() didn't learn about their terminations until they showed up to work Monday morning. At Tesla's Sparks, Nevada factory, security took to scanning employee badges — an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence, apparently — for folks coming out of vans that shuttle workers between parking lots and facilities. Those who had been laid off were singled out and sent back on separate vans, current employees who spoke to *BI* on condition of anonymity said. At Tesla's [now-infamous Fremont facility](), meanwhile, security told workers that if their badges didn't work, it meant they were no longer employed. ## Cruel and Unusual While lockouts are by no means an anomaly in the [tech industr]()y or even at [Elon Musk-owned companies]() specifically, it's an especially cruel way to treat one's employees on their way out the door. In [interviews with *Fox 7*]() in Austin, workers at Tesla's Texas Gigafactory described the shock and hurt they felt upon learning they'd been laid off, some of whom were, like their fellow workers at other facilities, informed when they were unable to get into the building on Monday morning. "I was literally standing outside trying to figure out why my badge wasn't working. Why is it that I can't log in?" one now-ex Gigafactory employee, a single mother of three who spoke to the local broadcaster anonymously, said. "Come to find out I was laid off." Another, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said they wished they'd had some sort of forewarning. "It's ridiculous — the bomb just dropped on me and who knows how many other people," the ex-Tesla worker told *Fox 7*. "Just a heads-up would have been nice." Although the email sent to the Austin Gigafactory workers seemingly included a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice, which is required by federal law in the case of plant closures and mass layoffs at most companies of over 100 employees, the Texas Workforce Commission told *Fox 7* that it does not have any such notice on file for Tesla. If WARN notices are in fact in place for the newly-laid off Tesla workers, they should be paid up through at least June 14 by law — and if not, the company could be subject to [federal violations](), which is the last thing it needs amid its [massive stock drop]() and [dwindling sales](). **More on Tesla:** [*Woman Sues Tesla After Toddler Starts Car, Runs Her Over While Pregnant*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()