A recently rehired Tesla Supercharger team member beautifully explained why he came back and gave a respectful nod to his former leader fired by Elon Musk.
At this point, we have a fairly accurate picture of what happened with the firing of Tesla’s ~500 charging organization.
As I described in my article ‘Elon Musk is throwing his weight around Tesla, comes in like a wrecking ball‘, sources say that amid a round of layoffs, Musk asked Tesla’s head of charging, Rebecca Tinucci, to fire 15 to 20% of her team, which she did.
But Musk asked for more and she pushed back against it.
The CEO decided to not only fire her for the push back, but to fire her entire organization of 500 people. It was seemingly to set an example since right after the move, he sent an email to other executives to warn them that the same thing will happen if they don’t cut as deep as he requested.
The move is expected to cripple Tesla’s capacity to deploy new charging station once the projects already in the hands of contractors are done, but the rash decision ha nothing to do with a change of plan regarding charging at Tesla.
Musk said that Tesla would still invest about $500 million in Supercharging this year.
Tesla was expected to rehire some of the team members that were let go and over the last few weeks, Electrek has heard of about a dozen team members that were rehired.
This morning, George Bahadue, Sr. Manager of Site Acquisition and Business Development for Tesla’s Commercial Charging, announced on LinkedIn that he was rehired two weeks ago:
Two weeks ago, I was asked to return to Tesla in my previous capacity heading up business development and site acquisition for Tesla charging – I accepted.
It’s no easy decision to go back to an employer that let you and your entire go in this manner.
In his post to announce his return, Bahadue quoted Tinucci to explain his reasoning:
This quote by our former fearless leader guided me:
“You work at Tesla because you hope to have at least a small impact on our collective future – aspirationally, to leave the world better for our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren – by accelerating the transition to sustainable energy. And that mission is too important to allow any distractions.”- Rebecca Tinucci
Bahadue knows that charging infrastructure is still a barrier to EV adoption and he believes that he can do most about it by returning at Tesla:
One of my mentors told me to follow my heart. My heart is with our customers, our site hosts, all the stakeholders that make EV charging possible, and the Tesla mission of changing the world. Charging is still one of the main blockers to EV adoption and there is much work to be done. Over the years, we have forged amazing site host relationships and I’m excited to get back to working with them to solve this.
He is not wrong. EV infrastructure is still a problem and Tesla has been the biggest part of the solution in North America so far.
The automaker has been installing the vast majority of fast-charging stations int he market:
If Tesla’s deployment experiences any kind of slowdown, which is now expected, it will undoubtedly have a significant impact.
Electrek’s Take
That is beautifully said. I do believe Bahadue and I fully appreciate the sentiment. I hope others follow him, but I wouldn’t blame them if they don’t.
I’m not saying it’s the case with Bahadue here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla has to open its wallet wider to hire some of the former team members.
Also, it’s great on him to mention Tinucci.
A lot of unwarranted bad things have been said about her by Elon fans, even though she helped build what is undoubtedly the best global fast-charging network in the world.
She deserves at the very least some credit and praise. She fought for her team.