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Elon, Inc.

An Insider’s View on What Ails Tesla

Matt LaBrot worked as a sales manager for six years until he spoke up against Elon Musk. Now he tells his story on Elon, Inc.

Photographer: Photo illustration by 731. Photos: NASA (1), Getty Images (3), Bloomberg (1)

Takeaways

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In this week’s episode of Elon, Inc., host Max Chafkin and Bloomberg Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull sit down with Matthew LaBrot, a former Tesla sales manager who made headlines last week following his departure from the company. LaBrot was the man behind the “Tesla Employees Against Elon” website, which consisted of an open letter from an initially anonymous LaBrot criticizing the company’s multibillionaire CEO. He suggested Tesla would be better off continuing its mission without the South Africa native, his antics and the headlines that follow in his wake. Despite recent reports of the company board also having second thoughts about Musk’s performance as CEO, the company seemingly didn’t agree, and took swift action.

On the podcast, LaBrot outlines why he decided to write the letter, how he came to part ways with the company and how Tesla employees handle, or willfully ignore, “the elephant in the room.” As a former sales manager, LaBrot also spells out the internal struggles of the company as sales started plummeting in tandem with Musk’s far-right turn and association with President Donald Trump.

Hull and Chafkin also go through a list of additional Musk news from the week. These include a spat with Bill Gates, some good news for the Boring company and the latest example of cross-pollination in the Musk empire: Tesla hardware powering xAI’s supercomputer.

  • LaBrot said Tesla employees realized Musk’s embrace of the far right and especially his endorsement of Trump were hurting Tesla’s sales in the fall of 2024. Sales had actually started slowing in early 2024, but employees blamed economic factors, including rising interest rates, and the company responded by lowering prices. By September though, it was clear price cuts weren’t doing enough; customers just didn’t want to buy Musk’s cars. “Total foot traffic is down. Total demo drives—things like that are down,” LaBrot said.
  • During conference calls, managers refused to explicitly acknowledge the idea Musk’s behavior was hurting the company. His extreme politics are only discussed in side-chats during meetings or in private conversations between employees, LaBrot said.
  • LaBrot claims Tesla’s new Model Y, which was redesigned and released this year, is performing poorly, with large quantities of vehicles sitting unsold. He contends this is partly because the redesign makes it obvious the car was purchased after Musk’s embrace of Trump. “You can’t put an ‘I bought this before he went crazy’ sticker on any of these cars,” LaBrot said. (Read More: Tesla Sales Plummet Across Europe Even as Model Y Ramps Up.)
  • Despite his dramatic departure, LaBrot’s long tenure in Tesla sales comes out when discussing his very own Cybertruck. “I do not love the way that it looks on the outside, but when I drive it, I don’t have to look at it. And it’s really great on the inside,” he said. “So that sits really well for me.”

About Elon, Inc.: Each week, listen in as host David Papadopoulos (and sometimes Max Chafkin) convenes a panel of Bloomberg journalists tracking Elon Musk’s companies and the surprising ways they intersect, breaking down his latest moves and what they could mean for us all.

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