Do not believe these lies people. The emperor of Mars would never break a law. The stock will be worth trillions because Optimus sexbots will blow your mind (and maybe other things) with their capabilities AI will generate so much money, they won’t even know how to use it. Robotaxis. You know. The road to riches. Fuck off Dan Ives. I’m better than you at this pump and dump scheme. And Cathy? You’re a moron even when you’re right.
I think it’s more because H1Bs can’t change jobs easily so they stick with the company rather than using it as a springboard to something better.
It's both. H1Bs are supposed to be paid the prevailing wage for an area and occupation, but there are a number of loopholes, and it sounds like Tesla uses a bunch of them. I don't think Tesla is unusual in this for the tech industry, but the article makes it sound like they're more brazen ("H1B only" positions), especially combining a big H1B hiring spree with massive layoffs of Americans.
I worked in the Gigafactory close to Berlin. I don't think they even treat this as a wage issue in itself. It's automotive. Wages are like not even 15% of the production cost. Rather, the low wages compared to other car manufacturers are just one expression of how everyone at Tesla that is even just one wage bracket above the regular "Production Associates" loves to act condescending towards the regular workers. They pay less because they just feel good shitting on people, not because it hurts them. I left in a huge "fuck all" and forced Tesla to pay hundreds of workers almost a million € back in wrongfully terminated vacation days and a lot of Germans in the plant do similar when they've had enough. But when you hold a visa and your residence relies on that job to at least some degree, you can't do that, let alone knowing your way around labour laws and other things. The german plant employs a lot of refugees and employees from the middle east who, even though a lot of them are german citizens, don't know the language and labour laws very well. That is not to say, though, that particularly the turkish dudes that got into higher positions don't absolutely love to shit on others themselves. I suspect that the situation in the US must be similar and that a lot of the prominent exits in the last two years came about in the same way. I read about an engineer that left and stated that his reason was Musk and his politics. But chances are that he and a lot of other talented people that, in their jobs, just focus on getting shit done, had to deal with petty power games. It's not a hyperbole when i say that apart from everyone whos work is restrained by keeping the line running, the vast majority of everyone else is preoccupied with snitching eachother out, playing power games, mobbing, acting important, this kind of stuff. The major reason Tesla is not getting ahead in technologic development anymore is probably exactly that. Talented engineers, developers and technicians get dicked around with by others that see them as a threat, until they just decide to go elsewhere.
For these tech companies that pay fixed salaries wage is kinda bullshit to begin with. We know Elon demands absolutely ridiculous 80+ hour work weeks and employees that are at his beck and call 24/7. He likes to complain about Americans lacking the "work ethic" to endure such unreasonable and extortionary conditions. When in reality H1Bs just don't really have the luxury of refusing and being fired over it. We really need better worker laws preventing unpaid overtime. Or at least companies need to be super explicit in their employment terms that they expect you to basically be their slave.
Yep. Musk finally figured that out when he acquired Twitter and fired a ton of employees and had others quit. H1Bs couldn't do that so easily and just had them put in the hours to keep everything afloat. Musk has always viewed the fear of being fired or having a company fail as being the best motivator for employees and part of why he kept Tesla on a such a thin cushion of capital unnecessarily for so long until the risk of actual failure became real in 2019. He literally said he didn't want people having some sense of security that the company might not implode because it would make them "lazy". Given the history of racism that's known about to date within Tesla and the current policies of the Trump administration with immigration I can only imagine what these H1B holders are being told. "Mr. Musk is upset at our progress, better work harder or we're firing you and calling ICE", etc.
I work at a major financial institution and we do this. We request deadlines that will require major time commitments and they abuse the shit out of that. Not just h1b staff but those in India too. Yesterday I guy pinged me from India at 5pm my time 3am their time. I asked him why he was up so late and he stated he was asked to finish some tasks by EOD so he had to stay on. That's some major BS. The salaried position is also very abusive to Americans. Companies very well know most of these positions require more than 40hr week, especially in technology but don't compensate. 100k 150k salary isn't helpful when they require 60, 70, 80hrs a week. We really need congress to take this on. Biden administration tried to address this abusive but Trump basically came in and killed it.
But it’s a loophole mainly to pay less than what the role would normally pay for an American citizen.
Literally, no. H1B applications have to prove that they are paying the “prevailing wage” for the location, based on the government’s own data. This is one of the reasons H1Bs are difficult to transfer across regions or job profiles… the validation process has to restart.
If an H1B quits or gets fired they basically need to leave the country. It’s tremendous leverage for the employer that they don’t have with a non-H1B employee.
Yeah it's a massive problem in a lot of other areas too and it's really crazy how much the idea of 'grind culture' has been marketed as a good thing to try to justify it instead of implementing proper protections to prevent the abuse of employees.
He sells something called Full Self Driving that does not fully drive itself. You can bet he uses every loophole, and create his own. This guy sucks!
It's also because they can't quit
Musk has many times said Americans arent smart enough to work for Tesla.
should call it into ICE right? cause they like to nab visa holders?
Time for an ICE Drop by.
Every big company is doing this in the US atm.
Trump has musks competitor raided. Corruption?
H1B employees are favored by incompetent managers that demand obedience. Resident employees with stock grants will try to get an incompetent manager fired. They will risk stirring up trouble now for a better future. H1B employees will do what they are told because they can't tolerate risk. They will quietly look for work elsewhere as they follow orders to destroy the company they're at. You can see where Tesla is at. They're making constant improvements yet not making progress.
Tesla is about as popular as Epstein is when he walks into a sorority house
I supply custom equipment to tesla, and most/all their engineers are from India. These guys are some of the best and brightest people that you could meet.
And so they can’t quit when he does Hitler salutes.
Not Tesla fan here but 99 percent of large companies in the US do this. Some of it had to do with not being able to find applicable talent here in the US. Not surprising since our country is becoming even more of a shithole with Trump as president again.
There are a finite number of H1B visas issued. It can be difficult to find an employer willing to support a visa, if you're not a citizen (and yes, this is specifically with regard to automotive competitors working on autonomous vehicle development)
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