Some Tesla employees officially asked for Elon Musk to resign as they confirmed the automaker is facing a massive demand problem, which they attribute to the CEO.
One employee got fired for it.
Regardless of the political spectrum, there’s no doubt that many Tesla employees still support CEO Elon Musk amid his extreme politicization, whether because they agree with his politics or because they support his vision for Tesla to become an AI and robotics company.
However, not all Tesla employees agree.
There’s a growing movement within Tesla employees that recognizes that Musk is currently hurting Tesla’s mission to accelerate the advent of electric transport by alienating a large part of the consumer base and politicizing Tesla’s products.
In 2024, Tesla’s sales declined for the first time in a decade, and in Q1 2025, the decline greatly accelerated.
Tesla has been trying to blame the acceleration on the Model Y changeover in the first quarter, but as we have extensively reported over the last few months, there is plenty of evidence that demand is crashing despite the new Model Y’s availability.
Some Tesla employees recognize what is happening, and they are afraid that the company is ignoring Musk’s negative impact on demand.
A group of current and former Tesla employees published an open letter in which they wrote:
The damage done to Elon’s personal brand is now irreversible and as the public face of Tesla, that damage has become our burden. We are now at a crossroads: continue with Elon as CEO and face further decline as customers abandon the brand, or move forward without him and allow our products and mission to succeed or fail on their own.
They are hoping for the latter to happen, but Musk and the board have completely ignored the demand problem.
The Tesla employees believe that Musk’s announcement that he will “refocus” on Tesla and spend less time on DOGE during Tesla’s earnings call last month was an example of that:
Elon’s recent claim that he is “refocusing” on Tesla is not only tone-deaf, it’s insulting. It implies that the hardships of the past six months stem from a lack of his attention, not from his actions. It shifts the blame onto the very people who have held this company together. Let’s be clear: we are not the problem. Our products are not the problem. Our engineering, service, and delivery teams are not the problem. The problem is demand. The problem is Elon.
The employees highlight how EV sales were up 10% in Q1 in the US while Tesla’s sales were down 9%.
The group of employees is also not buying Tesla’s excuse that it was simply due to people waiting for the new Model Y as they now confirm that thousands of new Model Ys are now sitting in inventory:
Now those very cars are sitting unsold, growing week after week. Production is running better than ever. Quality is high. Processes are strong. Demand is what’s broken. This is not a product problem. It is a leadership problem.
Electrek reported over the last few weeks that new Model Ys have been showing up as inventory vehicles despite Tesla opening up orders just weeks ago.
They are officially asking for Tesla to move forward without Musk as CEO
Tesla is ready to move forward. And we’re ready to move forward without Elon as CEO.
One of the Tesla employees behind the letter, Matthew LaBrot, has been let go, and he claims it’s due to his association with the letter.
He published it on a website and said on LinkedIn that he was let go because of it.
LaBrot had been at Tesla for more than 5 years and he was “Staff Program Manager for Sales and Delivery Training Programs” for the last 3 years.
A X account was also created to share the letter, but it was suspended by the platform, which is owned by Musk, who calls himself a “free speech absolutist.”
Tesla’s demand issues are getting so significant that the automaker told workers at Gigafactory Texas working on the Cybertruck and Model Y production lines to take a full week off.
Electrek’s Take
I’m happy to see some Tesla employees challenging the false narrative that there are no real demand issues. I liked how the letter framed the situation. It made it clear that Musk is the source of Tesla’s main problems right now.
Ignoring Tesla’s problems with the hope that you will soon figure out self-driving, even though you have been wrong about it for years, won’t make them disappear.
Unfortunately, Tesla is making it clear that injecting a dose of reality into this narrative will get you fired.
It’s a really sad time for a once-incredible company that had a massive impact on the auto industry and accelerated electrification.
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