Tesla Continues Wave of SolarCity Layoffs

Tesla has fired more than 200 additional employees from their SolarCity subsidiary, some of which claim that performance reviews never took place.

CNBC reports that following a number of dismissals at Tesla Inc.’s motor division earlier this month following the recall of approximately 11,000 Model X SUV’s, firings at Tesla subsidiary SolarCity are continuing, but some employees are claiming that they never received performance reviews. Tesla previously announced plans to lay off approximately 205 SolarCity employees at its office in Roseville, California, by October but in the last two weeks, employees across the country have been let go.

According to two former SolarCity employees, the entire Roseville office is being shut down, however, a Tesla spokesperson told CNBC that the office would be remaining open with approximately 50 full-time employees operating at the location. In March of 2015, SolarCity stated that they employed approximately 450 employees at the Roseville location and planned to add 300 more.

Tesla did not reveal how many employees have been let go from SolarCity but former employees estimated that around 1,200 people have been fired from both Tesla and SolarCity in the latest wave of dismissals.

A spokesperson for Tesla pointed to a previous statement from the company when asked about the number of recent dismissals:

Like all companies, Tesla conducts an annual performance review during which a manager and employee discuss the results that were achieved, as well as how those results were achieved, during the performance period. This includes both constructive feedback and recognition of top performers with additional compensation and equity awards, as well as promotions in many cases. As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures. Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world.

According to a number of recently fired employees from the company’s sales, field energy, and customer relations teams across four different states, firings were usually discussed on a one-to-one basis with HR. However, some recent firings took place as part of larger group meetings.

Like other Tesla employees, the SolarCity employees received separation agreements via email with the reason for the firing being listed as “failure to meet performance expectations.” A former SolarCity employee claimed that all performance reviews had not been completed since Tesla purchased the company in November of 2016.

Three other former employees requested copies of their performance reviews from HR but allege that they never received the documents. In some of these cases, Tesla HR acknowledged these requests but sent ahead separation agreements to the employees which included arbitration agreements, forcing the employees to sign away any of their rights to sue the company if they wanted to receive two weeks worth of their salary.

HR staff allegedly told staff in one office that they were being let go for problematic “conduct with peers.” An ex-employee states that when questioned about the conduct, HR refused to specify any specific incidents. The ex-employees claim that they were never notified of any previous problematic conduct.