After Tesla Staff Signed Letter Asking Elon Musk to Resign, at Least One Has Been Fired

Matthew LaBrot, a Tesla worker who created the web site Tesla Employees Against Elon Musk, was fired from the corporate two weeks in the past. LaBrot claimed in a LinkedIn put up that he was terminated for having created the positioning, and since he was half of a bigger group of workers who publicly requested Elon Musk to resign from the corporate. 

Tesla has confronted a number of crises this yr—main remembers, declining gross sales, litigation, and a unstable inventory value, to call a couple of. Gross sales of the automobiles declined for the primary time in additional than a decade in 2024, and had been down once more by 13% within the first quarter of 2025. In Europe, the corporate’s troubles are particularly pronounced with a virtually 50 percent sales decline in Germany final month and France seeing the same 59 percent drop in the identical interval. 

Tesla has blamed falling gross sales on the discharge of a brand new Mannequin Y, the corporate’s best-selling mannequin. On their Q1 2025 earnings name final month, the corporate defined that there merely weren’t “sufficient of the brand new Mannequin Y obtainable in most markets” at first of the yr to make a optimistic impression on gross sales. 

Not so, say the staff behind the letter, who signed off as “Tesla Staff for a New Chapter.” They argue that Tesla’s troubles should not as a result of missteps in Mannequin Y manufacturing, however somewhat to the general public repute of the corporate’s polarizing CEO, Elon Musk. “Let’s be clear: we aren’t the issue. Our merchandise should not the issue. Our engineering, service, and supply groups should not the issue. The issue is demand. The issue is Elon.” 

It’s price noting that Tesla itself made the same assertion on its earnings name final month, conceding considerably hilariously that “undesirable hostility in direction of our model and our individuals had an impression [on sales] in sure markets.”

This evaluation jibes with knowledgeable evaluation, a lot of which has blamed Tesla’s struggling gross sales on its CEO’s current foray into right-wing politics. Final yr, Musk donated at the very least $288 million to assist elect Donald Trump and different republican candidates to workplace. And as a particular advisor to President Trump, Musk has spent a lot of his 2025 on the helm of the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), dwelling to the administration’s efforts to dramatically reduce (and falsely boast about cutting) authorities spending. 

In early 2025, Musk’s participation in politics sparked a grassroots protest motion known as Tesla Takedown, which has rallied demonstrators at Tesla showrooms and charging stations across the nation. And whereas it has since recovered some losses, the corporate’s inventory value plummeted at first of the yr. By mid-March, the corporate’s share value had dropped by 38% for the reason that starting of 2025. 

Amid strain from buyers, Musk introduced on Tesla’s Q1 earnings name that he’d be stepping again from his work in Washington to spend extra time on the firm. 

Of their open letter, Tesla Staff for a New Chapter known as Musk’s choice “tone-deaf” and “insulting.” “It implies that the hardships of the previous six months stem from a scarcity of his consideration, not from his actions. It shifts the blame onto the very individuals who have held this firm collectively,” they continued. 

In keeping with his LinkedIn, LaBrot labored in “Gross sales and Supply Coaching” at Tesla and had been with the corporate for greater than 5 years earlier than his dismissal.