Tesla faces mounting internal unrest after a veteran employee was fired for publicly criticizing CEO Elon Musk. He urged the company to replace him amid falling sales and reputational concerns tied to Musk’s political activity. Tesla confirms its reputation for customizing free speech to its own rhetoric only.
Matthew LaBrot, a staff program manager who joined Tesla in 2019, said he was terminated just one day after launching a protest website and attending a demonstration outside a Tesla facility in California.
The website Tesla Employees Against Elon published an open letter critiquing Musk’s leadership and calling for the automaker to move forward without him.
“The damage done to Elon’s personal brand is now irreversible, and as the public face of Tesla, that damage has become our burden,” the letter read. “Our products are not the problem. Demand is. The problem is Elon.”
Deep concern
LaBrot, 35, said the initiative came from deep concern about Tesla’s future. “I wasn’t planning on working elsewhere,” he told Business Insider.
“I could have stayed in that role my whole life. But I couldn’t stay silent anymore.” The employee participated in a demonstration, flanked by a Cybertruck with graffiti sprayed on it, with the message: “Pro clean energy. Pro sustainability. Pro EV. Pro Tesla. Anti Elon.”
The dissident voices portray growing unrest at Tesla, as global deliveries keep dropping 13% in Q1 2025—its first year-over-year decline in over a decade. Despite rolling out a refreshed Model Y, sales have lagged. According to internal employee feedback and multiple reports, the automaker sees high inventory levels and dwindling showroom traffic.
In California, Tesla’s longtime stronghold, vehicle registrations were down more than 15% in Q1. Employees like LaBrot say they noticed a shift during the 2024 election cycle, when previously loyal customers began abandoning the brand. “We didn’t have to overcome objections,” LaBrot said. “They just stopped coming.”
Misuse of company resources
LaBrot pointed to Musk’s increasingly partisan public persona—particularly his vocal support for Donald Trump, controversial actions like saluting him at his inauguration, and $277 million donation to pro-Trump causes—as key drivers of the company’s reputational fallout.
His dismissal, which he says was officially due to misuse of company resources, came just 48 hours after he launched the site and appeared at the “Tesla Takedown” rally. LaBrot denies using Tesla’s tools or time to create the site, and says the termination was retaliation.
Elephant in the room
Tesla has not responded to requests for comment. At the latest earnings call, Musk was asked about the side effects of his political maneuvers on his car business. But he brushed off the question, answering, “At the end of the day, what matters is if Tesla makes a great product.”
Still, in American media reports emerged that the company has been in active talks with headhunting firms to find a replacement, an effort halted by the news that Musk would wind down his involvement in DOGE. Officially, these reports were called “absolutely false”.
However, LaBrot and those associated with his views argue that ignoring the issue is compounding the company’s problems. “They’re talking about struggling sales and how to increase close rates, without addressing the elephant in the room,” he said.
Elon Musk has a reputation for quickly silencing protest voices within his ranks and firing at will. Last year, he sacked the entire Supercharger team, even though the network contributes to the company’s profits.
And when one of the managers spoke out against the nazi jokes Musk made on X, he was immediately asked to clear his office.
