Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 3: A star is born Elon mars Juson Kennemy.
Speaker 4: He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 1: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 3: I feel for the guy. I would say ninety eight
Speaker 3: percent really appreciate what he does.
Speaker 4: But those two percent that are nasty, they are I'll
Speaker 4: pay in full post.
Speaker 5: We are meant for great things in the United States
Speaker 5: of America, and Elon reminds.
Speaker 6: Us of that we don't have a fourth branch of
Speaker 6: governments called Elon Musk.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: It's Tuesday, May thirteenth.
Speaker 5: I'm Max Chafkin, and I'm sitting here with Bloomberg's Elon
Speaker 5: Musk reporter Dana Hall.
Speaker 2: Hey, Dana, Hey, Max. All right, so today's show's going
Speaker 2: to be a little different.
Speaker 5: You and I have an interview with Matt Lebrot, who
Speaker 5: is a former manager in Tesla's sales operation who made
Speaker 5: quite the splash last week. Dana, can you just give
Speaker 5: us a sense of what happened, why we're talking to Matt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Matt is kind of it's kind of a
Speaker 4: crazy story. In late April, he posted an anonymous letter
Speaker 4: Tesla employees against Elon in which he basically said that
Speaker 4: it was time to say the quiet part out loud
Speaker 4: and talked a lot about the brand destruction because of
Speaker 4: Elon's behavior. Two days later, he was fired, and now
Speaker 4: he has kind of gone wide. Business Insider did a
Speaker 4: profile of him, he has posted on LinkedIn, and he
Speaker 4: has a really interesting story to tell. I mean, is
Speaker 4: it is rare for someone who worked for Tesla for
Speaker 4: as long as he did to kind of go so
Speaker 4: publicly against the CEO of the company.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And this letter, which was originally posted on website Matt
Speaker 5: made Tesla employees against Elon dot Com.
Speaker 2: It's gone everywhere.
Speaker 5: And I'm really excited about this conversation because we've been
Speaker 5: talking really for months about the potential brand damage that
Speaker 5: Elon Musk's you know, political activities have caused, and Matt,
Speaker 5: I think has a unique perspective. We're gonna hear new things,
Speaker 5: things that I think are going to be somewhat revelatory
Speaker 5: for listeners in that conversation. But before we get there,
Speaker 5: Dana We got to run through some of the Elon
Speaker 5: Musk news this week because there's a lot going on.
Speaker 5: As we pod on Tuesday morning, He's in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 5: Remember our friend of Pod, Kurt Wagner, predicted a boy's trip.
Speaker 5: It appears that the boy's trip it's on.
Speaker 4: It's on, and I believe that Sam Malton is on
Speaker 4: this trip as well, So it's kind of like a
Speaker 4: strange bedfellows trip in the in the Saudi Arabian desert.
Speaker 4: I have not been able to keep up with what
Speaker 4: exactly Elon is saying, but I saw something cross the
Speaker 4: transom about Optimists possibly being displayed or like a demo
Speaker 4: of Optimists to Trump and NBS. So the other thing
Speaker 4: worth noting is that this is Elon Musk's for trip
Speaker 4: abroad since inauguration, So you know, he's going on this
Speaker 4: kind of tour of the Middle East with Trump, the
Speaker 4: first time he's kind of stepped away from the US
Speaker 4: since an inauguration.
Speaker 5: Well, an optimist would make a certain sense. I mean,
Speaker 5: it seems like part of the reason for Elon Musk
Speaker 5: doing this beyond just getting to hang out with with
Speaker 5: his pals and perhaps you know, squashed the beat with
Speaker 5: Sam Altman is money because you know Xai is trying
Speaker 5: to raise money. MBS, of course is good for it.
Speaker 5: He is a is a major tech investor, and there
Speaker 5: have been a lot of Saudi backed investments in Ai.
Speaker 2: Let's go all the way back to April.
Speaker 5: Twenty second, the Tesla earnings call Dana, because there's a moment.
Speaker 5: We didn't touch on this, I think at all in
Speaker 5: our earning conversation. But there was a little good news
Speaker 5: in that call.
Speaker 2: And let's let's first listen to the clip.
Speaker 6: Let's he was respected energy. The energy business is doing
Speaker 6: very well. The Mega pack is that nables Tony companies
Speaker 6: to output far more total energy then would otherwise.
Speaker 5: Good case the Mega Pack now that we we learned
Speaker 5: during the earnings call that the sales are are up.
Speaker 2: You've been talking about this as long as I can.
Speaker 1: I love I love the I love the Mega Pack
Speaker 1: as a product.
Speaker 4: I know everyone is like, oh god, Dana and her
Speaker 4: Mega packs, but the Mega pack is cool, Like we.
Speaker 2: Can you explain what it is before.
Speaker 5: I'm all for the love letter, but first let's like
Speaker 5: give us a little context and try to if you
Speaker 5: wouldn't mind, like just translating what Elon Musk just said into.
Speaker 4: Sure, I mean, frankly kind of looks like a big,
Speaker 4: big refrigerator or like a steel box. But it's basically
Speaker 4: you know, so, Tesla has two business units. There's the
Speaker 4: car division and there's Energy. And the Energy division includes
Speaker 4: you know, the solar roof, the power wall, which is
Speaker 4: like the home battery that you put in your house
Speaker 4: in case there's like a hurricane or a power outage
Speaker 4: or whatever. And then there's the Mega pack, which is
Speaker 4: Tesla's utility scale offering to utilities, and these things are
Speaker 4: huge and banks of them are installed all over the
Speaker 4: world North America, Europe, Australia, and they really are like
Speaker 4: keyed to helping renewables come on to the grid. So,
Speaker 4: you know, the sun doesn't always shine, it's not always windy,
Speaker 4: but if you want to be able to store energy
Speaker 4: and then be able to dispatch it back to the
Speaker 4: grid during peak demand times, storage is key. And there
Speaker 4: are a lot of big players in the energy storage
Speaker 4: market and Tesla is one of them. But as I
Speaker 4: reported recently, what was missing from that Ernie's call was
Speaker 4: the fact that one of the big customers of the
Speaker 4: Megapack is Xai, Elon's Ai company, and so Xai has
Speaker 4: this supercomputer called Colossus good name, yeah, good name, big
Speaker 4: data center in Memphis, Tennessee. That's gotten under a lot
Speaker 4: of fire from environmental and racial justice groups because at
Speaker 4: the moment they were using like gas fired generators to
Speaker 4: kind of keep this plant up and running.
Speaker 1: And now what's happening.
Speaker 4: Is they are adding megapacks to this installation, which is
Speaker 4: more energy efficient, and then they can kind of get
Speaker 4: rid of the gas generators. But it's just another example
Speaker 4: of you know, all of Elon's companies overlap, and one
Speaker 4: company sells a product to another. And this was the
Speaker 4: first time that I had seen, you know, in a filing,
Speaker 4: like any notice of Xai buying megapas as a customer
Speaker 4: to the tude of like two hundred and thirty million
Speaker 4: dollars worth.
Speaker 2: How much of the total megapax sales is that? I mean?
Speaker 5: Is this like, is is the whole megapac thing basically
Speaker 5: like a sham? It's just Elon musk moving money from
Speaker 5: one company to another.
Speaker 4: No, because they actually do sell megapacks to a lot
Speaker 4: of utilities around the world, like Pgene Southern California Edison.
Speaker 4: I mean, they have a robust pipeline of sales.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's move on to the next story that I
Speaker 5: wanted to bring up, which is the news uh in
Speaker 5: the New York Times that the Federal Railroad Administration, this
Speaker 5: is the part of the government that handles the nation's
Speaker 5: rail infrastructure, is meeting with the boring company, Elon Musk's
Speaker 5: tunneling venture about a possible bl eight point five billion
Speaker 5: dollar tunnel. You know, Dan, I was interested in this
Speaker 5: because there's been this narrative of Elon Musk kind of
Speaker 5: withdrawing from Washington.
Speaker 2: He's back to his companies.
Speaker 5: Right and and I think there there may be some
Speaker 5: truth to that, but as we've discussed, he's obviously still
Speaker 5: spending a lot of time with Donald Trump. I mean,
Speaker 5: they're in Saudi Arabia right now. But also I think
Speaker 5: the next phase of this, as we as maybe doge
Speaker 5: becomes less in the sort of center of the news
Speaker 5: and and they're less focused on cutting or whatever, is
Speaker 5: that they're gonna be contracts and this, and that Elon
Speaker 5: Musk is going to be trying to get talk the
Speaker 5: US government out of billions and billions of dollars, and
Speaker 5: this Boring Company thing is is probably just you know,
Speaker 5: the first of several of reports like this that we're
Speaker 5: gonna hear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting because of all of the companies at
Speaker 4: Elon's empire, the Boring Company is like the least successful company.
Speaker 4: I think that's bareness.
Speaker 2: To say that.
Speaker 5: The two or three or four, I'm not sure how
Speaker 5: many miles of tunnels in Las Vegas that you can
Speaker 5: drive a car through are not an impressive monument to
Speaker 5: you know, technological innovation.
Speaker 1: You've been to the one in Las Vegas.
Speaker 4: I have not, But I mean of all of the
Speaker 4: companies like the Boring Company, to me, I always thought
Speaker 4: that the whole conceit of boring was let's figure out
Speaker 4: how to perfect tunneling so that we can eventually like
Speaker 4: settle Mars, where you're gonna need tunnels because there's no atmosphere.
Speaker 4: And there's been a lot of news reports about boring,
Speaker 4: like bidding or talking about building tunnels and all kinds
Speaker 4: of crazy places, But the Las Vegas one is the
Speaker 4: only one that actually exists that I'm aware of.
Speaker 5: I've done a lot of reporting on the Boring Company,
Speaker 5: and I think you're probably right that there's some truth
Speaker 5: and like in the back of Elon Musk's mind, yeah, sure,
Speaker 5: mars whatever. But like, really the genesis the Boring Company was,
Speaker 5: I want to get some infrastructure contracts out of Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: And the Boring Company was founded, you know, just at
Speaker 5: the beginning of the Trump administration, back when Steve Bannon
Speaker 5: was talking about you know, infrastructure and so on, and
Speaker 5: it was at the time, like as I understood it,
Speaker 5: I mean, like a pretty transparent play to kind of
Speaker 5: get in on that. Of course, Elon Musk is really
Speaker 5: good at that. He's good at figuring out sort of
Speaker 5: next generation solutions to problems that the government has, such
Speaker 5: as rocket launches. But as you say, like the the
Speaker 5: track record.
Speaker 2: Isn't great, I mean we're not.
Speaker 5: We're talking about you can go from the Westgate in
Speaker 5: Las Vegas to the Convention Center. That's that's a trip
Speaker 5: you can also make on foot, but of course you
Speaker 5: can get in a tunnel. And this would be on
Speaker 5: like a whole other level if they if they were
Speaker 5: to win this contract.
Speaker 4: Amtrak has been a target of the Trump administration for
Speaker 4: quite a while. I mean, Musk has also taken put
Speaker 4: shots at Amtrak. I think all of us who take
Speaker 4: Amtrak could agree that, like, there are some inefficiencies in
Speaker 4: the system, but it's not clear to me this you
Speaker 4: know what exactly this contract would be for and and
Speaker 4: they don't actually have it. And there it sounds like
Speaker 4: they're talking to a lot of potential vendors.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this sounds like a very preliminary conversation. I will say, also,
Speaker 5: there will be conversations about conflict of interest. Steve Davis,
Speaker 5: who I think has been described Dana, Am I right,
Speaker 5: COO of Doze or does he is also.
Speaker 2: COO of the boring company?
Speaker 5: So you're gonna have conversations about is this a conflict
Speaker 5: of interest? Particularly you have Doge in the Department of Transportation. Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: Doge is also sort of or somebody involved with Dose
Speaker 5: is also potentially benefiting financially. That'll be something I think
Speaker 5: for us to keep an eye on. All Right, last
Speaker 5: thing here, Dana, and this will feed into the next conversation.
Speaker 5: But Bill Gates has been on sort of a media tour.
Speaker 5: He's making the decisions about his philanthropy. I guess he's
Speaker 5: The plan is for him to give away all of
Speaker 5: the philanthropy's money over the next twenty years, and in
Speaker 5: the course of interviews about this, he's made a bunch
Speaker 5: of comments about Elon Musk, and during an interview with
Speaker 5: The Financial Times, he said that that Musks cuts to
Speaker 5: USAID DOZES cuts USIID will lead to millions of deaths
Speaker 5: and said the picture of the world's richest man killing
Speaker 5: the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. He
Speaker 5: brought up specifically Musk's comments about Doze cutting funding for
Speaker 5: HIV prevention in Mozambique. Remember this was the These are
Speaker 5: the cuts that Musk described as condoms to Gaza, falsely
Speaker 5: because there is a province in Mozambique also called Gaza.
Speaker 5: Turns out this funding was for HIV prevention. Gates is
Speaker 5: saying that it's going to kill children. And we've talked
Speaker 5: about brand damage a lot, but something about this, something
Speaker 5: about Gates. This like very successful capitalist accusing Elon Musk
Speaker 5: of being responsible for millions of deaths of children, Like
Speaker 5: it just it feels significant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and a successful billionaire whose own foundation has done
Speaker 4: an enormous amount of work in the field of public
Speaker 4: health and vaccines around the world. Right, So, I mean
Speaker 4: the Gates Foundation is one of the big funders of
Speaker 4: like global health and so to have Gates come out
Speaker 4: and say this at a time when Gate is kind
Speaker 4: of like exiting the stage and winding, you know, like
Speaker 4: sort of signaling that like his philanthropy is going to
Speaker 4: end the next stage to see ages, it's like a
Speaker 4: parting shot to the world that like, you know, all
Speaker 4: of these cuts are Elon's fault. And I think the
Speaker 4: fact that Elon sort of gleefully posted on x that
Speaker 4: he had spent the weekend feeding USA ed into the
Speaker 4: wood shipperd he sort of goes hand in hand. I mean,
Speaker 4: Elon himself very much acknowledged that Doge was was key
Speaker 4: with that whole operation, and you're really seeing the fallout
Speaker 4: now around the world.
Speaker 5: I want to say, for the record, Elon dismissed Gates
Speaker 5: as a quote huge liar. The two have a long
Speaker 5: history of beef. Dan I believe Gates sold some Tesla.
Speaker 4: Stock at some point and was sure there was there
Speaker 4: was a theory that he was shortening Tesla stock.
Speaker 5: At some point Elon tweeted a me meme about Gates.
Speaker 2: So there's been a lot of a lot of back
Speaker 2: and forth.
Speaker 4: It's one of the original feuds right, well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Okay, Dana.
Speaker 5: I am so happy that we have Matt Lebrot here,
Speaker 5: the author of this letter about Tesla and Elon Musk,
Speaker 5: longtime Tesla employee, Matt joining us from the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely happy to be here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 5: You worked at Tesla for I believe almost six years.
Speaker 5: Tell us, just to create some context, what were you
Speaker 5: doing at the company?
Speaker 2: What was your role there?
Speaker 3: Sure? Absolutely. I started in the field in southern California
Speaker 3: as an assistant manager they call them customer experience managers
Speaker 3: back then, and then was promoted to general manager of
Speaker 3: another sales and delivery location in the Bay Area. That's
Speaker 3: when I moved up here to Colma, South San Francisco area,
Speaker 3: and then from there transitioned into some corporate roles where
Speaker 3: I supported the least return team and then eventually made
Speaker 3: my way over to customer education and internal training for
Speaker 3: our sales and delivery teams. So when I left or
Speaker 3: got asked to leave, however, we want to phrase that.
Speaker 3: You know, my most recent role, I was creating sales
Speaker 3: and delivery content for North America for the twenty five
Speaker 3: hundred ish leaders and sales and delivery associates.
Speaker 4: So to back up for a second for people who
Speaker 4: might not be aware of the sequence of events. I
Speaker 4: got this anonymous letter in my inbox Tesla employees against Elon.
Speaker 4: Tesla is ready to move forward. And the letter is
Speaker 4: extraordinary and it says our products are not the problem,
Speaker 4: our engineering, service and delivery teams are not the problem.
Speaker 4: The problem is demand. The problem is Elon. And so
Speaker 4: I get this letter and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: who wrote this? And I started emailing with Matt, who
Speaker 4: was anonymous at the time, and I was like, do
Speaker 4: you work in sales? Like when can we meet? And like,
Speaker 4: because we have very high barber publication at Bloomberg, I
Speaker 4: couldn't write about it until I could verify his employment,
Speaker 4: and like, so this letter comes out. I think every
Speaker 4: journalist who covers Tesla was probably like dming you and
Speaker 4: trying to meet with you. You ultimately talked to Business Insider,
Speaker 4: but you got fired, Like two days later. Do you
Speaker 4: want to talk about the sequence? Like the letter goes.
Speaker 2: Up, start with why you wrote the letter in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 3: Sure, First of all, I was the only person to
Speaker 3: write and publish the letter. There were no other employees
Speaker 3: that were fully aware of me doing that. However, the letter,
Speaker 3: you know, I appreciate the feedback I've gotten for it
Speaker 3: being a well written letter. It's not all my ideas.
Speaker 3: This is a compilation of conversations that I've had with
Speaker 3: countless employees across North America over the last six months.
Speaker 3: So that's where all of this information, and you know,
Speaker 3: the idea really came from. And after increasing frustrations month
Speaker 3: over month and you know, expecting Tesla to make some moves.
Speaker 3: You know, we can of course go into deep about
Speaker 3: the timeline of frustrations, but you know, really, once I
Speaker 3: decided it was time to publish this, I did everything
Speaker 3: I could to stay anonymous. The plan was to stay anonymous.
Speaker 3: I am as relatively tech savvy as I think I
Speaker 3: could be, so you know, I took these necessary steps.
Speaker 3: I bought a new computer, I used my home Wi
Speaker 3: Fi network to purchase the domain and build the website,
Speaker 3: all these things that I thought I did to keep anonymous.
Speaker 3: But within forty eight hours, I received a phone call
Speaker 3: from a very polite HR associate, you know, shout out
Speaker 3: to them, they're not the one who did this, right,
Speaker 3: So she was very nice but you know, when she
Speaker 3: let me know I was terminated, you know, she very
Speaker 3: specifically said for using company resources. And again she's not
Speaker 3: the one who did the investigation. I can't fight with
Speaker 3: this person on it. But I very specifically didn't do that.
Speaker 3: I took these steps appropriately to actively not do that.
Speaker 3: As far as how I was found out. Again, we
Speaker 3: can dig in more if we want, but info, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Infosec's a big thing.
Speaker 4: Could you talk a little bit about the cyber truck
Speaker 4: and and the fact that you own one and what
Speaker 4: you did with your cyber truck as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, Uh, you know, I did buy a cyber truck.
Speaker 3: I will throw out there that I do not love
Speaker 3: the way that it looks on the outside, but when
Speaker 3: I drive it, I don't have to look at it,
Speaker 3: and it's really great on the inside, So that sits
Speaker 3: really well for me. My wife and I didn't even
Speaker 3: have a ton of arguments about buying it. It was
Speaker 3: it was kind of okay because I bought mine right
Speaker 3: when it came out. I think by mid February I
Speaker 3: had mine, and it was really through the lens of
Speaker 3: we did need a truck. It would be pretty absurd
Speaker 3: of me as a Tesla employee to buy a Rivian,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to continue to support the company that
Speaker 3: I worked for, So all those things added up to great.
Speaker 3: Get a cyber truck. And then after I published my letter,
Speaker 3: you know, this huge weight gets lifted. This tension that
Speaker 3: I've been feeling about this for a long time was lifted.
Speaker 3: And then the ideas start to flow, and I come
Speaker 3: up with the idea of turning this cyber truck, which
Speaker 3: has been communicated many times as being such a great billboard,
Speaker 3: and it's like, great, let me billboard this thing up.
Speaker 3: And I ran to home depot, grabbed some spray paint
Speaker 3: and some stencils, and in my garage in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night, spray painted this message that I wanted
Speaker 3: to get across, and and that message is, you know,
Speaker 3: pro clean energy, pro renewable resources, pro EV and pro Tesla,
Speaker 3: all of those things can be true while still then
Speaker 3: being anti elon. So spray painted that on the side
Speaker 3: and I decided to park it next to the demo
Speaker 3: drive fleet that they have in the parking structure, which
Speaker 3: at least guaranteed anybody who's going to take a demo
Speaker 3: drive they're they're gonna see this thing.
Speaker 5: Matt, why and maybe this this can get us into
Speaker 5: kind of talking about what's happened as Elon has has
Speaker 5: gotten more political, but like why that message specifically, I
Speaker 5: mean pro EV, you know, pro clean energy, but against Elon?
Speaker 2: Why why against Elon?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the letter is not as political as the Business
Speaker 3: Insider article you know went in that direction, but you
Speaker 3: know the message was really the for Elon by our
Speaker 3: primary customer base has changed and the reason for that
Speaker 3: is a scattering and it started with him being more
Speaker 3: active on Twitter and eventually turning into the acquisition of Twitter.
Speaker 3: We started to see that transition happen. But as that
Speaker 3: transition was happening, we were still seeing such an influx
Speaker 3: of first time EV buyers. So, you know, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: end of twenty twenty two, we're still seeing first time
Speaker 3: EV buyers like we've never seen before. So the first
Speaker 3: wave of people that were abandoning Tesla because of Elon
Speaker 3: kind of were able to be hidden. And then that
Speaker 3: took a huge skyrocket forward when he started to get
Speaker 3: more political and specifically in a direction where again for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, a lot of our customers disagree with.
Speaker 5: So, like your understanding of like maybe this is in
Speaker 5: every Tesla customer, but this is a big part of
Speaker 5: your customer base kind of like a left of center
Speaker 5: kind of suburban type who's like interested in the environmental mission,
Speaker 5: not necessarily like some kind of hardcore leftist, but certainly
Speaker 5: not a Maga Republican sure, and that as Elon is
Speaker 5: doing this, he is essentially alienating this huge constituency which
Speaker 5: had been not necessarily buying all of Tesla's products, because
Speaker 5: of course there are you know, there are other types
Speaker 5: of customers for evs and so on, but buy a
Speaker 5: lot of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And everybody can fit into certain buckets, and
Speaker 3: Tesla customers fit in multiple different buckets. And the only
Speaker 3: one that I think that you're missing there is there
Speaker 3: is this group that doesn't even definitely political lean a
Speaker 3: certain direction, but they're free speech whatever your speech is,
Speaker 3: and clean energy in whatever way it needs to be done.
Speaker 3: So there's those folks as well. And I think that
Speaker 3: again was the initial wave. Those were the people most
Speaker 3: in tuned to what was going on on Twitter that
Speaker 3: now x and those were the first wave.
Speaker 4: Internally, did like the alarm bells go off, because, like
Speaker 4: we have argued on this show, quite a lot about
Speaker 4: Tesla sales, and everyone would always be like, oh, the
Speaker 4: sales are going to take a dive because Elon is
Speaker 4: so political, And I would say, well, yes, but like
Speaker 4: the lineup is old, and the cyber truck isn't doing well,
Speaker 4: and like the model why really needs refresh? So like
Speaker 4: there's multiple reasons why sales are taking a dip. You
Speaker 4: can't blame it all on politics. But like walk us
Speaker 4: through the timeline of you know, last July, muskandrses Trump October,
Speaker 4: he campaigns with him, Trump wins the election. Like were
Speaker 4: you getting data internally where you were like, oh, like
Speaker 4: we're seeing a big drop off. We're seeing a big
Speaker 4: cancel cancelation of orders.
Speaker 1: Like as a.
Speaker 4: Sales guy, like you must be tracking this very closely,
Speaker 4: like in real time day to day. Was there like
Speaker 4: when did you realize like holy crap, like this we're
Speaker 4: starting a creator here.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, yeah, there's there's so many different data points
Speaker 3: that you can go off of. But also in car
Speaker 3: sales and customer service in general, a lot of it
Speaker 3: goes off a vibe and how the vibes of the
Speaker 3: days are going, and you know, the customers that you're
Speaker 3: speaking to on the phone that submitted a trade in request,
Speaker 3: how open those people are to converse with you. You
Speaker 3: start to notice some changes there, But I think it's
Speaker 3: also worth acknowledging. You know, January twenty twenty four and
Speaker 3: to June, those were really tough financial times. Car interest
Speaker 3: rates very very high, so you really start to see
Speaker 3: a slow down there that is really attributed to just
Speaker 3: the current state. I do think it is worth calling
Speaker 3: out the age of the why by that point as.
Speaker 2: Well was a little bit of a factor.
Speaker 3: But I mean, how long has the Honda CRV looked
Speaker 3: like the Honda CRV? Right? The majority of customers, especially
Speaker 3: the ones that Tesla has been going after the last
Speaker 3: few years, they don't. Those aren't the ones who care
Speaker 3: about the most up to date thing. So by June
Speaker 3: we're seeing promotional aprs, we're seeing interest rates, all these
Speaker 3: things that Tesla hasn't really done before. Lease really big
Speaker 3: lease focuses things like that. So you see Teslas start
Speaker 3: to make some moves there, and then you as sales,
Speaker 3: you kind of breathe a little bit where you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: this is working this you know the May June where like,
Speaker 3: all right, we sold so many model wise, life is grand.
Speaker 3: It was just a financial issue. And then September rolls
Speaker 3: around and Septembers where you're like, well, we're still doing
Speaker 3: the same aprs. We've got FSD transfer.
Speaker 5: Sorry just to pause FSD transfer, meaning you're not charging
Speaker 5: people an additional seven grand right to get this full
Speaker 5: self driving software in their new Tesla. So it's like
Speaker 5: effectively a seven thousand dollars price cut.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is worth acknowledging that, you know. It is
Speaker 3: kind of the way of saying, hey, we know we
Speaker 3: didn't give you FSD for your first car, so sen
Speaker 3: you already bought it, let's transfer it. So there's pieces
Speaker 3: to that, but so all these levers are there to
Speaker 3: be pulled and we're still selling cars. But what you
Speaker 3: can acknowledge is the transition of we don't have a
Speaker 3: backlog of customers the same way that you have before
Speaker 3: for any customer who has purchased a Tesla over the years,
Speaker 3: you know, customer service hasn't really been the biggest focus,
Speaker 3: and well it hasn't truly been our focus, but end
Speaker 3: result wise, it hasn't really hit the mark yet. But
Speaker 3: what you would see is, oh, you're not ready to
Speaker 3: take delivery of your car, no problem, We're gonna unmatch
Speaker 3: it from you because it's just going to go to
Speaker 3: the next customer in line by. But most of the
Speaker 3: time we wouldn't respond, so that would happen. But then
Speaker 3: when September rolls around, we have to make this push
Speaker 3: for hey, maybe be a little nicer about this, Maybe
Speaker 3: hold some hands through this process, and don't just rip
Speaker 3: cars away from customers, because when you rip it away
Speaker 3: from them, there isn't another customer in line waiting for
Speaker 3: that car. And we're not talking just cyber trucks here,
Speaker 3: we're talking model wise, the most popular car in the
Speaker 3: world right that there is in and Tory available in
Speaker 3: the moment for anybody.
Speaker 4: So what happened between June and September? Was it the endorsement?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Was it that Elon endorsed Trump?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I think it's important to talk about the people
Speaker 3: who used to come in and be like, I don't
Speaker 3: really love what Elon's saying on Twitter. You know, whether
Speaker 3: they're there for a service appointment or they are thinking
Speaker 3: about getting a new car, but they're not super happy
Speaker 3: about it. We start to have less of those conversations
Speaker 3: because those customers just didn't come. It wasn't like we're
Speaker 3: fighting with people and we're trying to overcome these objections.
Speaker 3: It's really easy to not support a company you don't
Speaker 3: want to support, you just don't show up. So customers,
Speaker 3: total foot traffic is down, total demo drives, things like
Speaker 3: that are down. You know, just and this is you
Speaker 3: can sit outside of a location and count people coming
Speaker 3: in right if you want, Like you see those things.
Speaker 4: Okay, So that's through September. So then we've got the fall,
Speaker 4: Like the election happens, Trump wins, Musk is at inauguration.
Speaker 4: There's the whole awkward gesture which Max and I joke
Speaker 4: about all the time. Like you're in sales, you're on
Speaker 4: these team calls every day, Like are people talking openly
Speaker 4: about this or is it all like sides slack messages
Speaker 4: or dms or like going out for beers after work
Speaker 4: and be like, oh my god, what are we gonna
Speaker 4: do with our CEO? Like how much of an awareness
Speaker 4: was there internally that the brand issues were real?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Side messages on teams is the name of the game.
Speaker 3: You're sitting on these conference calls where you're talking about
Speaker 3: business needs, whether we're having a just a training meeting
Speaker 3: where we're talking about what trainings we need to put out,
Speaker 3: or full sales operations, or even North America leadership calls.
Speaker 3: Like all of these calls, nobody is saying, hey, traffic
Speaker 3: is down due to how people are feeling about the
Speaker 3: actions of our CEO. They just say traffic is down
Speaker 3: or whatever it may be. And then on the smaller
Speaker 3: groups where you're like, okay, we can talk more real,
Speaker 3: Like for these just training meetings, you're like, we can
Speaker 3: talk real here, there is still no acknowledgment about this
Speaker 3: giant elephant in the room. So the messages that the
Speaker 3: conversations you have with peers where you're acknowledging the real
Speaker 3: elephant in the room two on two conversations like teeny
Speaker 3: tiny groups with your peers, but no, nothing huge. And
Speaker 3: I even specifically, especially around this October turning point, ask
Speaker 3: my manager at the time directly, I'm like, hey, I know,
Speaker 3: I know we're fighting here. We're doing everything we can,
Speaker 3: We're putting out the best training content we've ever put out.
Speaker 3: But when you're in these meetings with your boss and
Speaker 3: their boss, do you is there this acknowledgment about why traffic,
Speaker 3: like and she just straight up tells me. She's like, no, no,
Speaker 3: we just don't talk about it. I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: but like, doesn't that mean that we then spend time
Speaker 3: focusing on a solve that doesn't actually reference the this
Speaker 3: root cause. And she's say, eh, what ifs like it is?
Speaker 5: It just sounds so oppressive, especially at a company that's
Speaker 5: like talks about itself, is grounded and thinking things through
Speaker 5: and first, you know, all the all the kind of
Speaker 5: I just imagine many people at Tesla just sort of
Speaker 5: in this state of real like unease because on one hand,
Speaker 5: like I think, and this comes up in the letter,
Speaker 5: but like everyone kind of knows that Elon Musk has
Speaker 5: done amazing things and it's hard to separate his identity
Speaker 5: from Tesla. And then on the other hand, this kind
Speaker 5: of like growing realization that his identity is harming Tesla,
Speaker 5: maybe even depending on your point of view, potentially putting
Speaker 5: it at in like an existential risk. It just I
Speaker 5: just imagine that's like a pretty heavy to go through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it really is. And you know, one of
Speaker 3: the reasons that I went live with the letter is
Speaker 3: because when you all are not hearing these bigger conversations
Speaker 3: in bigger groups, and again maybe it's just you and
Speaker 3: a couple of people talking about it, like you do
Speaker 3: actually feel like this thing is happening around you and
Speaker 3: you have no control over what's going on, and this
Speaker 3: weight is just you know, smushing you down. But once
Speaker 3: you start, once you meet a new person that is
Speaker 3: willing to say the quiet part out loud with you,
Speaker 3: it's just like, oh, okay, good, there's another person. And
Speaker 3: I am known for speaking my mind, and I'll come
Speaker 3: off of mute in some of these calls, and I'll
Speaker 3: call a spade a spade. I'll say, hey, can we
Speaker 3: just acknowledge that the new model, why, if it had
Speaker 3: launched last year, would have been selling like crazy. You know,
Speaker 3: these types of things where I'll come off mute, and
Speaker 3: these groups that I'm in, these people who I've known
Speaker 3: for a really long time, whether they're three levels higher
Speaker 3: than me or not, I respect these people. I get
Speaker 3: these side messages, you know, one that's like, amen, man,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for saying that. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: this person is huge within the company, and they're teamsing
Speaker 3: me on the side to say thank you for saying that,
Speaker 3: Like they don't feel empowered to say this thing that sucks,
Speaker 3: and these are the people that have been you know what,
Speaker 3: We can say all of the theomenal things that Elon has done,
Speaker 3: but we can also say that some of these people
Speaker 3: that I'm referencing are the people who led sales and
Speaker 3: delivery from twenty eighteen onward, where we ramped this insane
Speaker 3: operation and did these incredible things at lower staffing levels
Speaker 3: than anybody else would ever do, and things like that.
Speaker 3: So these are the people who were there for those things,
Speaker 3: and we're pivotal in making that happen, and they don't
Speaker 3: feel comfortable saying anything right now.
Speaker 4: So now that the letter is out and your LinkedIn
Speaker 4: post is out there, and the Business Insider piece ran, like,
Speaker 4: what kind of feedback are you getting from other automakers,
Speaker 4: from other salespeople, from your colleagues current and former?
Speaker 1: I mean, you must just be getting inundated.
Speaker 4: And people are like, thank you so much for speaking out,
Speaker 4: but like, why aren't other people speaking out? Is it
Speaker 4: just that Elon still has an iron grip on the
Speaker 4: company even though he's not really there every day and
Speaker 4: he's running four other companies, and as we speak, he's
Speaker 4: in Saudi Arabia with President Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been fantastic. I've gotten great emails, direct messages,
Speaker 3: all these kind of things. But I'll also acknowledge that
Speaker 3: there are people who have outreached where those outreaches mean
Speaker 3: more to me. And it's one of those things if
Speaker 3: you can acknowledge when you're in a sphere of people, again,
Speaker 3: whether we're calling it, you know, your Blue sphere of
Speaker 3: California or whatever, when you're surrounded by like minded people,
Speaker 3: you don't expect too much pushback. But some of these
Speaker 3: messages that I'm getting are from people across North America
Speaker 3: that maybe I've worked with a little bit. I got
Speaker 3: one the other day from a person who I'm like,
Speaker 3: this guy hates me. We've rubbed each other the wrong
Speaker 3: way for years, and to have this person reach out
Speaker 3: and say thank you so much for doing this. I've
Speaker 3: been struggling with what I'm supposed to do here, and
Speaker 3: you know, am I supposed to stay internal and try
Speaker 3: to fight the good fight internally? Or am I just
Speaker 3: supposed to leave? And also, so many people who've reached
Speaker 3: out said I just had to leave. You know, I
Speaker 3: got a new job, and I'm so much happier whatever.
Speaker 3: But that sucks. Like the fact that there is truly
Speaker 3: a chance that the Tesla vehicle business as we know
Speaker 3: it won't exist in three hundred and sixty five days.
Speaker 3: That sucks.
Speaker 5: But I mean, like in your letter you talked about
Speaker 5: new Model Why sitting on the lot, Like, first of all,
Speaker 5: that felt like news and also super serious, like that
Speaker 5: that is a real problem. That's supposed to be the
Speaker 5: hot car that you know.
Speaker 2: That's gonna that's gonna move.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I'm not out here sharing inventory numbers
Speaker 3: or anything like that. Where you can acknowledge from publicly
Speaker 3: available data is that you can go to the website.
Speaker 3: You can build out most configurations of Model Why and
Speaker 3: it will say available today. You used to wait months
Speaker 3: for these cars, and sure, we're great at production now
Speaker 3: and things like that. But a brand new refresh, and
Speaker 3: especially when when you're saying people have been waiting for
Speaker 3: this refresh, they didn't buy in January because they were
Speaker 3: waiting for this, you can instantly see that that's just
Speaker 3: not true. People will not buy this car for multiple reasons.
Speaker 3: One of them is that it is incredibly obvious that
Speaker 3: you purchased this car in twenty twenty five. You can't
Speaker 3: put a I bought this before he went crazy sticker
Speaker 3: on any of these cars.
Speaker 4: So even if it marks you, it marks you as
Speaker 4: like a post inauguration buyer exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And even myself, you know, driving a cyber truck.
Speaker 3: People have hated me right away from the cyber truck
Speaker 3: because they've had design issues with it. They just haven't
Speaker 3: liked the way it looks. But now it's like, listen,
Speaker 3: you bought this he was already crazy, And I can
Speaker 3: acknowledge that if I had picked my head up out
Speaker 3: of the sand, I probably should have known by that
Speaker 3: time where things were headed. But also shout out to Wes,
Speaker 3: who you know, really built this cyber truck program. It's
Speaker 3: a phenomenal truck from the inside.
Speaker 5: Yes, okay, So last question, Matt, and then we'll let
Speaker 5: you go. Do you think this company can be turned around.
Speaker 3: Based on when you talk to protesters, They're going to
Speaker 3: tell you no, because the expectation is not just getting
Speaker 3: him out of CEO, but that he must get rid
Speaker 3: of all of his shares as a real human that
Speaker 3: lives in the real world. In twenty twenty five, I
Speaker 3: acknowledge that you cannot buy anything without accidentally giving money
Speaker 3: to a billionaire that you don't believe in. So what
Speaker 3: I want to see is I want to see a
Speaker 3: separation from Elon. I want to see the company say
Speaker 3: we're sorry, let's focus on clean, renewable energies and then
Speaker 3: give us a shot to win you back. There is
Speaker 3: a chance there if that happens, but I also acknowledge
Speaker 3: that he's not going to do that.
Speaker 5: So, Matt, thank you so much that this conversation has
Speaker 5: been fascinating. I hope we can stay in touch, you
Speaker 5: know whatever as a story plays out. Good luck with
Speaker 5: the job search, and hopefully we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, thank you all so much.
Speaker 1: That was awesome.
Speaker 5: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Masarakis is
Speaker 5: our editor, Blake Maples handles engineering.
Speaker 2: And Dave Purcell factchecks. Our supervising producer.
Speaker 3: Is Magnus Henrickson.
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