This Tesla Employee Got Their Work Visa a Month Ago. Then They Were Laid Off

Raj returned from India only a month ago after getting the crucial H1B work visa stamp on his passport from the U.S. consulate in Mumbai. The visa allows him and 85,000 other highly qualified foreign workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to enter and work in the U.S. each year. But after Tesla decided to shred 20% of its global workforce last month, Raj was left unemployed, leaving him with just 60 days to find another role or leave the country.

In an interview with InsideEVs, Raj—whose employment with Tesla was verified, but is being identified here under a pseudonym to protect him from professional repercussions—touched on several topics, including how the layoffs exactly took place, how they affect the production lines of one of the Gigafactories, and how unemployment complicates matters for international workers.

Tesla layoffs send shockwaves in the EV industry.

Few people anticipated that it would take just one bad quarter for the world's largest car company (by market cap) to shred 20% of its global workforce and reinforce its focus toward robotaxis and AI. We're now hearing deeply personal accounts of how these layoffs are impacting individuals and uprooting their lives overnight.

As tech companies embrace artificial intelligence and automation amidst industry headwinds, mass layoffs are increasing in frequency. Some 80,000 workers have been laid off so far in 2024 according to the tracking website Layoffs.fyi. That figure is expected to rise as the Tesla layoffs continue into this week; CEO Elon Musk has pledged to go “hardcore” with the company’s staff reductions amid an apparent pivot to robotaxis and AI. 

“I was in the office one morning in April when my email got blocked and I was like, what's happening?” Raj said. He held a supervisor position at one of Tesla’s several production teams.

“I heard there was an issue with Microsoft," he said of the email delays. "But then many of us got an email saying that the people unable to log in that day had been laid off. A bunch of people in my department and in my shift were dismissed."

These included locals as well as several international workers like himself.

“That was it,” he