Elon Musk’s Tesla Lays Off LGBTQ+ and Diversity Heads
“it comes amid several comments Tesla CEO Elon Musk made, concerning what he describes as the ‘woke mind virus'”
Elon Musk’s car company Tesla has laid off several employees due to concerns about the economy, including the company’s heads of diversity and LGBTQ+ issues.
Of course, the left is reacting most strongly to the identity-related layoffs.
This may be part of the continuing red-pilling of Musk, but it’s also possible that this move is purely an economic one. Diversity staffers are a luxury and not essential to the building of cars.
Fred Lambert reports at Electrek:
Tesla lays off head of LGBTQ+ and diversity lead amid Musk’s ‘woke mind virus’ concerns
Tesla has laid off both the president of its LGBTQ+ community and a lead involved in diversity and inclusivity programs at the company.
While they were let go as part of a broader wave of layoffs, it comes amid several comments Tesla CEO Elon Musk made, concerning what he describes as the “woke mind virus.”
Earlier this month, we reported on Musk telling Tesla executives in an email that they need to cut 10% of the workforce and pause hiring due to having a “super-bad feeling” about the economy.
Later, the CEO decided to clarify the Tesla layoffs in an email to all employees. He claimed that the 10% reduction would be for “salaried headcount” due to Tesla becoming overstaffed following a long growth phase.
Tesla ramped up the layoffs last week, and we reported that unlike what Musk said, they did include hourly employees.
Now we learn that many employees involved in diversity and inclusivity programs were part of the layoffs – including the president of Tesla’s LGBTQ+ community – and a lead involved in diversity and inclusivity programs at the company.
People on the left are not happy about this.
Elon Musk lays off the top people in charge of Tesla’s diversity and inclusivity programs, including the executive who was president of Tesla’s LGBTQ employee community group. Anyone surprised? pic.twitter.com/nu4msPfXpa
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) June 20, 2022
This is a new low in just how stupid Elon Musk is! He’s concerned about a virus that makes people more aware of social injustice?!? Time to boycott Tesla! https://t.co/3bSFKgetPd
— John T. Nester (@johnnyt54) June 20, 2022
Elon Musk is a bastard https://t.co/pYAm8seset
— Amy G-B 🇺🇦 I stand with Ukraine BLM 🏳️🌈🐄🧩 (@BrauneisAmy) June 20, 2022
Laid off employees have already launched a lawsuit over the lack of notice before the layoffs.
Interestingly, this Reuters report doesn’t mention the identity-related employees:
Tesla sued by former employees over ‘mass layoff’
Former Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) employees have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. electric car company alleging its decision to carry out a “mass layoff” violated federal law as the company did not provide advance notice of the job cuts.
The lawsuit was filed late Sunday in Texas by two workers who said they were terminated from Tesla’s gigafactory plant in Sparks, Nevada in June. According to the suit, more than 500 employees were terminated at the Nevada factory.
The workers allege the company failed to adhere to federal laws on mass layoffs that require a 60-day notification period under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, according to the lawsuit.
They are seeking class action status for all former Tesla employees throughout the United States who were laid off in May or June without advance notice.
“Tesla has simply notified the employees that their terminations would be effective immediately,” the complaint said.
Whatever Musk’s reasons were for laying off the LGBTQ+ and diversity employees, the company will be better off without them.
Diversity policies in the corporate space serve the same purpose in academia. They enforce a progressive worldview and weed out those the left deems political undesirable.
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Comments
It figures. 500+ employees get laid off and the left is getting their panties in a bunch over the two gay ones.
You mean Diversity and Inclusion isn’t our Strength?
Don’t know what they’re bitching about. The fact that Musk included some gay employees in the layoff proves that he is in fact practicing inclusivity.
That’s exactly what they are upset about.
“Tesla has laid off both the president of its LGBTQ+ community and a lead involved in diversity and inclusivity programs at the company.”
So, these are people who engaged in political activity during work hours. They have no place at a real, for-profit company.
+100
Warning: rant follows.
Thank you, Mr. Musk! I hope you are the one that has broken the dam on this nonsense. Or, broken the damn.
From my vantage point of being a “G”, I just never understood all of this nonsense about having staff hired to cater to what I am. They have no Vice President of the Sinistral, or for those of Persons of Red Hair, so, why for “G”? Besides: I am there to do a job. My sex life has no more bearing on that than the brand of washing machine I have.
(For the record, I don’t like that a synonym for “happy” was hijacked any more than straight folks.)
Why, also, do they toss my kind in with the Ts and the Bs and the rest of them? Each are distinct. It is as silly as “persons of color”. Blacks are not Asians are not Amerinds.
One more thing, slightly on-topic: many big companies have clubs or groups for staff with common interests. Amateur Radio. Sports leagues. Car clubs.
Some also have LGBTEIEIO groups. If I had ever worked for one of those companies that had such a group, I’d steer so far clear of it I’d not be able to see it with a telescope!
Why? Because I’d be ADVERTIZING what I am, and this would tell any higher-up, “he’s the faggot; don’t promote him”. That, or more sensibly, “he views the world through the prism of his homosexuality; can he be a clear, analytical thinker?”
Don’t tell me how “woke” these companies are now; its all a front. When it’s time to fill a job that is not window dressing or to meet a quota, the straight WASP will get that job. You won’t ever find a non-token Bruce or Judith in the board room.
I read Roe v. Wade before my legal career began, and I had at one time thought that the US Supreme Court could recognize the right to privacy as a major protection for the individual. For example, neither employers nor anybody else should have the ability to ask about a person’s private life, be it sex or politics or medical care. For me, the right to be left alone is important, and easily found in the Constitution.
Those who disagree may look at the right of citizens to be secure in their papers. If we have from the inception of this country had a security right in our papers, we surely have a right to security in our bodies and minds.
However, most of the discussion has been hijacked by exhibitionists, who quite frankly get a sexual thrill out of bothering people who do not want too much of somebody else’s information.
I was one of the many young women who were sexually harassed in the workplace. I really like the idea of leaving people’s private lives out of the workplace.
I believe that the right to privacy is, properly defined and narrowly construed, a right that is essential for a free society.
However, it is not mentioned in the constitution, though its existence can be inferred from various amendments which touch upon privacy rights without expressly mentioning the word.
As a simple matter of constitutional interpretation, courts ought not to create rights not specified in the constitution. That is the job of legislatures in the 50 states, or Congress, not the courts. And, of course, the constitution can be amended.
What we have now among leftists generally is a willingness to make up “rights” not mentioned in the constitution (such as gay marriage and abortion), while ignoring specific rights that are included in the text of the constitution, such as the 2nd and 10th amendments.
It is particularly galling to hear the constitution described as supporting these made up rights when the activities which are the subject matter of gay marriage and abortion were illegal everywhere at the time of the drafting of the constitution.
The 9th amendment is a pesky one, but its meaning seems clear. It recognizes the existence of unenumerated rights without defining them. It’s one of the constitution’s elastic clauses, along with congressional power regarding the “general welfare.” (Art. I, Sec. 8)
Arguments galore, but one of the beauties of the constitution is its flexibility. It doesn’t define or list everything. It leaves room for change over time. Enumerated rights are, or should be, inviolate. Unenumerated rights are a furball, never to be completely settled.
Amendment IX is simple: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The Supreme Court long ago recognized unenumerated rights, one being for parents to direct the upbringing of their children. Is that a made-up right too?
You have a right to privacy from the people with guns and a monopoly on the use of force to achieve their aims. You don’t have a right to privacy from other citizens, and corporations count.
They have a right to ask you about your private life. You have a right not to answer. They have a right not to hire you if you don’t answer. That’s an actual, enumerated right: the right to freedom of association.
Freedom of association is a classic unenumerated right. Strongly implied by Amendment I, yet not enumerated.
Wait, so being a homosexual man is not EXACTLY. THE. SAME. THING. as being a lesbian? Or a transgender? Or a pedophile groomer? How can that be? Heh.
I hear you, Grizz. One of the things that makes me crazy about the mental gymnastics and delusion required to follow leftist cultural crazy is that, when you cut right through the crap, they are saying that there can’t be homosexuals because there aren’t actually definable “men” and “women.” Once they decided to get rid of gender, the next step is to say that men can’t be sexually attracted to men and not women because there’s no such thing as a man or a woman in the first place.
So here we are. Wondering how lesbians manage to be lesbians when no one can define what a woman is . . . an astounding disavowal and diminution not just of lesbians but of every homosexual man and woman on earth. Yet it’s the “gay community” (apologies, I know you hate the “g word”) that most embraces this crazy, a crazy that ultimately says they can’t be “gay” because men aren’t men and women aren’t women, so you can’t be attracted to either or one sex. It’s pure crazy town.
Being gay beats a straight any day.
Lesbians are a full house.
Cross-dressers currently are a wild card and take precedence.
But lesbos with the right skin color beat all. They’re a royal flush.
There is a slogan I have seen used by more than one septic pumping service over the years.
“A Royal Flush beats a Full House”.
Bwhaaaha! That’s Funny.
High school friend of mine owns a service. The company motto on the sides of the trucks is “We’re #1 in the #2 Business”
I don’t wonder at any of those things, Fuzz. I fuse to concern myself with the minooshah (<– won't even TRY to spell it right; I'll goof it up as badly as orderve).
I am male, and when still working, gave my employer value for pay, and then some. I behaved myself, never brought bad image or word to the company, and that was that.
That is all there should be. Enough of the leftist nonsense, and, more so, enough of the right bellowing about it. IGNORE IT.
Transgender is an end-around on the lgb movement. I love it. They won’t allow us sanity, so make them deal with even greater insanity. They should have left well enough alone and done what they do privately just like everyone else.
Problem is when the transgender thing is used to promote hormone treatments and surgeries on children and teenagers, who should not be allowed to consent to the permanent destruction of their fertility.
@artichoke, this G couldn’t possibly agree more with you.
I owned a relatively small business for the better part of 20 years. I had an employee who was, as you say, “G”. He too would’ve found the idea of me hiring someone to cater to what he was, a preposterous idea, not to mention a waste of money.
I hired him because of his well established work ethic, and the fact that he was a wiz on a Nardini lathe. His personal sexual preference had absolutely nothing to do with the job. It was irrelevant.
We only had one “affinity group”- employees of my company. All you had to do to belong was show up on time and put in a solid day of work. That simple formula worked out beautifully.
BINGO! I’m retired from two careers, and wouldn’t have welcomed pro-G (or L, B, T etc) discrimination.
That’s funny, Judith doesn’t look WASP-ish.
Judith. (lesbian)
The only point of disagreement from me (also a G) is the objection to “gay.” I wasn’t thrilled with it back in the 1970s when I came of age, but I could see it as an improvement over “homosexual,” which is accurate yet clinical in a somewhat negative way in ordinary discourse. In any case, while the constitution doesn’t “evolve,” the language does. “Gay” is a fait accompli, and at most a trivial issue to me, anyway.
Everything else you wrote: Not only “yes” but hell “yes.” Especially the T, but I don’t feel like pulling my string on that one at the moment, so: “hell yes.” The only things I’ve ever wanted are a) to live a free life, same as anyone else, and b) to somehow remain “visible,” because of what I see as a natural inclination of “the hetero community” (ugh, but that’s language) to overlook the fact that a small but steady proportion of people are same-sex oriented.
The a) is more important to me by a long shot, and the b) is fraught with complications, and I can sympathize with at least some of the objections. What I call LGBT Inc. has become broadly unrepresentative of my tribe. LGBT Inc. consists of a few dozen activists on media speed dial lists, and I see their radicalism as much more of a risk than anything right now.
He’s running for President.
He cant, not a Natural Born Citizen
He’s African-American, like Obama.
I’ll bet he could come up with a better, more legible, official looking birth certificate than Obama’s photo-shopped forgery.
I assume that you’re joking. Obama wasn’t African American & neither is Musk.
Musk is from South Africa. South Africa is a country in Africa. Therefore Musk is an African-American. QED
President of Mars.
Did they spin off the M&M division?
I personally call this a good start.
Hey when the grownups wake up, the useless ones are fired.
Anything in this genre of “jobs” and “careers” is a privileged, novelty position for people who can’t do anything else, yet rake in six to seven figures for being “president” of the LGBT community (whatever the heck that means).
As Bidenflation kicks us further into recession and possibly into a very serious depression, other companies will follow suit. When the economy is humming and people are all fat and happy, these empty activist positions seem like a great idea, but when it’s not, as now, they become unsustainable.
We might indulge our child with that giant lollipop bigger than her head when we’re flush with cash, but when it costs $400/week to fill up the family cars and another $900 to buy the week’s groceries, little Suzy makes do with some yummy (but soon-to-be hard-to-find) peanut butter to satisfy her sweet tooth.
If there’s a small bright spot in this otherwise terrible situation, it’s the thought that these non-productive overpaid “Social Justice” type jobs are on the chopping block while the jobs of people who actually produce and provide a service, like the crews who keep the pipes flowing and floors buffed, are secure in their positions.
As an aside, not exactly news, but it cost me $36.00 to fill the tank on my lawnmower today. It’s not even a big mower for Pete’s sake. Less than two years ago I could have filled the tank of my Hyundai for less.
Come on, Fuzzy. No less a person that our sage Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, she of the “transitory inflation”, asserted (shilled) that a recession was not “at all inevitable.” /s
I would like to ask her how, with inflation measured as in the 1970’s – a fixed basket of items – running about 10 points above wage increases, a recession could possibly be avoided. With that kind of difference, eventually consumers have to buy fewer numbers of goods and services = recession.
She got bit by a rabid raccoon. Now, she is Old Yellen.
/ducking
Old Yellen needs to retire. She’s as bad as Biden.
It’s common to refer to the Brandon administration as Clown World, but it’s more like Snow White World.
You got Blinkin, Yellen, Doc (Fauci), Grumpy (Garland), Dopey (Buttigieg), and (of course) Sleepy.
I like it. I’m stealing this.
Janet Yellen is definitely qualified, but not for what she and the media imagine. She is qualified to wait tables somewhere. I bet she’d be good at it, too.
I am glad you brought up this additional point: the other purpose of those DEI related jobs is just to give income and benefits to people with no useful knowledge or skills. Besides their duty to establish and enforce an oppressive political process in corporations, they also hire as many dead weight, know-nothing allies as they can to extract as much income and benefits as possible while pretending to be important corporate executives.
The purpose is public relations. Will shitcanning them cause sales to decline? I strongly doubt it. I have to laugh at those who bought Teslas thinking that EVs are “progressive,” when in fact they are nothing but cars with a different propulsion system. Nothing more. Oops. LOL
I thought the left was all for allowing private companies to do what they want–that’s what they always say when Facebook and Google are censoring conservatives
It Doesn’t Count When Democrats Do It
The ‘diversity’ and LGBTQ people weren’t treated any differently than any other employee that got laid-off.
Equality defined.
What Tesla didn’t do is give them special treatment, which is what the wailing is about.
They failed the “So what exactly do you do around here” test, so out they went.
Less political congruence (“=”), less racism, sexism, etc. One… two steps forward.
Makes sense. Get rid of the most useless positions first.
I wasn’t even aware Tesla made an LGBTQ+. How far can it drive on one charge?
Seriously, though, when you have high-level employees who have nothing to do with making or selling your product, it’s a sure sign there’s fat to be trimmed.
You have to suck it to get it going Bi-golly. You don’t have to beat it like a Beetle and it rides better than a Bronco. It and goes further than a Trans-am and you you get a queer feeling passing gas stations.
They did make one, but they couldn’t find many people who wanted to plug that in.
This is all great, but I wonder if Elon isn’t pandering to the right now, in order to piss off the left and get Twitter to let him out of that transaction without paying the $1 billion breakup fee. He had the leaked conference with Twitter employees where he came across as a tough boss who will fire most of them for incompetence and uselessness. He disses the diversity stuff at Tesla, which will be good for them whatever happens with Twitter. But still, I wouldn’t elect him as an icon of social sanity yet. He may have a woke side if it suits him or his allies.
Still, he’s doing more of what we need than any Republican, and he doesn’t beg you for money.
If I ran Twitter, I’d move that whole show to Huntsville, Alabama, a city chock full of engineers, and tell the employees that they will have to show up in the office, in Huntsville, or they are perfectly free to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Can you really Elon fir skipping the “60-day notice”, if it really applies here? All he did was protect his business and the jobs of the remaining workers from the very predictable internal vandalism the terminated employees would have engaged in.
Tell them that they are done, give them a check for the next couple weeks, and have security walk them out to the street.
Should say: “Can you really BLAME Elon for….”
He may have to pay them for up to 60 days and may be fine with that.
“An employer who violates the WARN provisions by ordering a plant closing or mass layoff without providing appropriate notice is liable to each aggrieved employee for an amount including back pay and benefits for the period of violation, up to 60 days.”
Good move Elon. If they don’t build cars they aren’t contributing to the profitability of the company,
They are best seen as public relations staff. Not needed in Texas.
Good riddance !
Following these controversies makes my day. Let me be the first to point out that Elon Musk is the new disrupter…..the new Donald Trump. Soon we’ll hear that the US House of Representatives plans to hold “hearings” to discredit his behavior and reputation.
Tesla is highly vulnerable for two reasons with no connection to any of this political crapola.
1. Self-driving, including the semi- version, i.e. “autopilot.” Lots of evidence of serious issues there.
2. Battery fires. This is a sleeper and remains to be determined. It’s one of those classic “little things” that might wind up being a big thing. There’s a battery component that must be automotive spec (think a civilian version of “milspec”), or there’s a major potential issue. Word is that Tesla has source non-automotive spec chip components with a tendency to start fires.
Either one of those are potential MAJOR liabilities, and are not political.
To be covered by Warn notice, the layoff must include at least 33% of the employees, this layoff is not that big and there is no plant closure. See 29 USC 2107(a) and 54 FR 16064. The layoff must also be for more than six months and a Company is excused if it is as a result of unforeseen economic conditions. Tesla could claim the Fed’s interest rate raise was speculative and unforeseen or that it has realized an economic downturn is occurring. A Company can also pay the employees for the Warn period and not have them work which some companies do to avoid having employees notified of layoff spreading disaffection at the work site or even engaging in sabotage. Anyone can sue, but you have to have at least an arguable legal position or the case is frivolous. Tesla has good lawyers and has probably met legal requirements.
Basic rule of working for a private company: When push comes to shove, you’d better be linked to either a) generating profitable revenue, and/or b) reducing or controlling costs. Everyone else is expendable. In this case, Musk is shitcanning people who don’t fall in either category. Boo hoo. Welcome to the world.