Musk Mayhem Continues: Tesla Employee Fired For Freedom Of Speech Error – CleanTechnica

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Last Updated on: 28th February 2025, 01:12 pm

What happens if you work for Tesla and you voice your concerns about the CEO’s social media post that jokes about Nazism? You’re told to clean out your cubicle and never again let your shadow cross the gilded Tesla corporate threshold. It’s another example of Musk mayhem at work.

Bantering back and forth with language and its nuances is an art, one that has been cherished by social commentators from Shakespeare to Mark Twain to the Smothers Brothers. Was such cleverness what Tesla CEO Elon Musk had in mind when he drew upon infamous Nazis like Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring for a January 23 comment on X?

“Stop Göring your enemies. Bet you did Nazi that coming.” 😂

Jared Ottmann, a manager and engineer who worked with Tesla’s battery suppliers, wasn’t amused and spoke out. In reaction, Tesla fired Ottmann, who had written about his disgust on LinkedIn.

“Well, we have seen it coming. Elon’s behavior, whatever the underlying motivations, are well documented (https://lnkd.in/gcUCzRxy). Starting in 2022 and especially the last week I’ve raised the issue internally multiple times, with managers, HR, legal compliance, investor relations. And while overwhelmingly people offer personal support, Tesla as a company has remained silent. This post by Tesla’s current CEO name drops genocidal assholes as a joke and has 308,000 likes. The silence from Tesla is deafening. What’s a mensch to do?”

Remember last month when dozens of world leaders joined a group of fewer than 50 Nazi death camp survivors in Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz? That’s where more than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered.

The event followed Musk’s heil hand gesture during a speech at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Right-wing extremists celebrated Musk’s straight arm gesture, while many media pundits excused Musk’s action as the product of a socially awkward person. Shame on you, enablers. You should have called out the gesture for what it was: a nod to extremism as an acceptable norm in the US.

Revealed over the last several years as a proponent of right-wing politics, Musk has openly endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The Carnegie Endowment offers several reasons why AfD’s rise is problematic.

• The party has repeatedly been investigated for its ties to anti-democratic networks.
• Several of its state-level branches have been designated by German courts as right-wing extremist groups.
• Some blocs within the party define German citizens with migrant backgrounds as “not properly German.”

Musk Mayhem Translates into Huge Service Gaps

Musk posted an ultimatum on Saturday afternoon on his social media space, X.

“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Musk’s decree came after Trump urged Musk to be “more aggressive” in cutting the government. “Will do, Mr. President,” Musk replied. Trump has maintained that Musk is only a presidential advisor with no real authority. CleanTechnica editor Zachary Shahan wondered what Musk actually accomplished for the Tesla board during the same time frame.

Nonetheless, drawing on Musk’s advice, the Trump administration has let go hundreds of federal employees, including the removal of as many as 17 inspectors general, whose job is to conduct objective audits of federal agencies and promote efficiency. The memo came from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), now run by Musk’s team. The severance email had the same title as one Musk sent to Twitter employees when he took over that company in 2022.

Musk has been described by the Trumpsters as someone who is not employed by the Department of Government Efficiency. Yet during a tag-team cabinet meeting this week with Trump, Musk admitted that DOGE had made some initial mistakes, such as when it “accidentally canceled very briefly” efforts to contain an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Musk continued. Any such mistakes have been quickly resolved. DOGE “restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.”

The problem is that USAID workers need to be paid, and the money to do so did not resume. Nor did the work they provide, which will cost countless lives and is a direct ambush on humanitarian aid and relief in critical regions around the world.

It’s not the first firing that has former Tesla aficionados shaking our heads. There have been many employee layoffs and firings — as well as some rehirings once it became clear that the employees were necessary.

For example, last April Musk fired almost the entire Tesla Supercharger division. What the hell was going through Musk’s mind to make such a drastic decision? Rebecca Tinucci was a high-ranking Tesla executive — a rare female in that role. Tinucci gave a presentation to Musk that infamous day which laid out the viability and profitability of Supercharger expansion, but mercurial Musk wanted more layoffs. Tinucci fought back, claiming that more layoffs would be contrary to the foundational underpinnings of the Supercharger network’s success. Musk fired Tinucci on the spot and laid off 500 employees in the Supercharging division, which comprised the majority of its Supercharger team.

Final Thoughts

Two years ago I mused, “Is it time to fire Elon Musk from Tesla?”

“His once-strong vision for the company has deteriorated into a series of fantasy scenarios and partially completed plans. Yes, Musk is brilliant. His legacy is set — he nearly single-handedly ushered in the era of transportation electrification. But he is no longer functioning adequately in the capacity needed as head of Tesla. It’s time to fire Elon Musk.”

I thought it was appropriate then — but at the time no one would have believed the destruction that Musk would have single-handedly been able to enact. We know that any regular workers like ourselves would’ve been fired long ago from Tesla had we engaged in the same behaviors negatively influencing the company’s performance.

Three former heads of the EPA are also very concerned. In a New York Times op-ed, William K. Reilly, Christine Todd Whitman, and Gina McCarthy expressed fears that Trump administration cuts to the EPA “would render the agency incapable of protecting Americans from grave threats in our air, water and land.” The trio recalled how between 1970 and 2019 the EPA “cut emissions of common air pollutants by 77 %, while private sector jobs grew 223% and our gross domestic product grew almost 300%.” The EPA minimizes exposure to dangerous air during wildfires, cleans up contaminated lands, and tests for asbestos, lead, and copper in water, delivering health benefits that outweigh its costs, these former EPA leaders remind us, by more than 30 to 1.

Citizens are rising up in dismay over these and other Musk/Trump administration actions, and House leaders are urging members of Congress to stop holding constituent events.