Tesla cuts summer training program to cut costs, as Elon Musk struggles to save his $45 billion payroll plan

Tesla rescinded its offers just weeks before internships were set to begin, prompting aspiring employees to turn to LinkedIn to plead with other employers to take them on.

“At 8:46 a.m., I opened a file Tesla Email for flight information. By 11:25 a.m., my internship presentation was over.” books Joshua Schreiber, a University of Miami student, said his start date was in three weeks and he had already spent “thousands on housing.”

Schreiber, like many other Tesla interns, is dangerously close to the end of the school year. They say surprise calls from Tesla informing students that their shows were no longer running left them without much time to find alternative gigs for the summer.

In one case, a current Tesla employee posted on LinkedIn, asking her VPN to come forward and nab an intern who was supposed to soon start working at the automaker. “Please make our loss your gain!” books Diana Rosenberg, who works in battery supply at Tesla, according to her profile.

Rosenberg blamed the decision to cancel the Apprentice show on the mass layoffs that have occurred at the automaker.

Last month, Musk announced that Tesla “made the difficult decision to reduce its headcount by more than 10% globally.” Since then, several executives have left the company as Musk pushed for further cuts. Most of the company's 500-person Supercharger division and its newly formed marketing department have been eliminated, Bloomberg News reported.

The billionaire is determined to cut staff amid plunging electric vehicle sales and big expenses for his Robotaxi dreams, people familiar with Musk's thinking said. They say Musk is targeting a 20% cut, Bloomberg reports.

Canceling internship offers is unlikely to save Tesla much money. At least one of the jobs was for an unpaid position, while paid internships at the automaker typically pay $18 to $28 an hour, according to data from Glassdoor.

But the decisions will have an impact on the company's hiring trajectory: More than 3,000 college and community college students from around the world are recruited for Tesla internships each year, according to the company's latest report. Impact report. “Do meaningful work from day one,” it says Trainee company website.

The move also provided a stark life lesson to the students.

“Rejection is redirection.” books Brooke Gura, a communications student at the University of Texas at Austin, said she received a call saying her offer had been withdrawn three weeks before the start date as part of mass layoffs at the company. He added: “Although I am very disappointed that I will not have the summer I intended to have, I know that this moment will help me become stronger as a professional.”

Gura, Schreiber and Rosenberg declined to comment beyond their posts. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.