'It feels like a morgue': Tesla employees say morale has fallen drastically as stores close and workers are let go (TSLA)

Tesla blindsided many of its store employees with the announcement last week that it will close stores and sell its products exclusively online.
Three Tesla salespeople and one salesperson who left the company this week told Business Insider that the mood inside the company is increasingly negative, with one even comparing it to a morgue.
CEO Elon Musk said in an email to employees last week that "a small number" of stores would remain open as galleries.
Tesla declined to comment.

Tesla shocked employees last week when it announced it will shift to an online-only sales model and close "many" of its retail stores.

One salesperson, away from his assigned store in California at the time, found out later that evening only after reading news reports about the plan.

"Every time there are layoffs, we are notified after the fact," the employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Business Insider. "It's a slap in the face. We should have been notified first, we're the ones building [Elon Musk]'s empire."

That's just one example of an outpouring of exasperation by Tesla employees, many of whom say they've been left in the dark about major business decisions that affect their ability to sell cars and energy systems.

Tesla advisers, as the company calls its salespeople, were taken off of separate energy and car focuses last year amid the company's push to post a profit in the third and fourth quarters. Taken out of the field, former energy salespeople told Business Insider that bonuses were drastically changed last year so that individual bonuses were tied to team performance inside the stores.

"It's empty in here right now," another employee, under the condition of anonymity, said of their assigned store. "This is usually an upbeat place to work, but now it feels like a morgue."

The decision to close stores — many of which in California, New York, Washington, DC, have already closed — might work for cars, the employee said, but energy systems need a more hands-on approach. Home energy systems can take 90 days to install.

"You can test-drive a car for seven days, but solar is a full-blown construction project," the employee said.

But even automotive salespeople say they're still necessary for Tesla to continue to grow.

"Electric cars are too new of a concept to not have a sales force," a former customer-experience specialist, who left this week, said. "The worst feeling was opening a store and three months later closing its doors. I've never been divorced, but that’s probably the best way I could describe what I felt was happening."

Overall, employees love working for Tesla, even frustrated workers are quick to say.

"We were working really, really hard because we were doing it for something above ourselves," a current salesperson said. "We were doing it for Tesla and for the mission."

Workers are invested not only morally in Tesla's mission — some have moved thousands of miles to work for Tesla — but also financially. Large fractions of many employees' pay are in the form of restricted stock units, which are shares given to workers on a predetermined vesting schedule. The ultimate value of the shares is dependent on the price the company's stock is trading at on the date of maturation.

"You've got people who are working their a---- off in jobs they weren't even hired to do," the employee said of salespeople who pitched in to deliver cars to customers last year. "And Tesla doesn't give a s---."

Tesla declined to comment.

Do you work at Tesla? Have a story to share? Get in touch with this reporter at grapier@businessinsider.com

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