Summary

Tesla replaced many laid-off U.S. workers with foreign H-1B visa holders after a 2024 wave of layoffs affecting 15,000 employees.

These visas, tied to employer sponsorship, often lower compensation and give employers significant leverage over workers.

Critics argue this displaces U.S. employees, as senior engineers were replaced by lower-paid junior engineers.

CEO Elon Musk, while advocating for expanding H-1B visa caps, faces backlash, especially from conservatives, for “job-stealing” concerns.

Musk contends there’s a U.S. skill shortage, but critics highlight potential exploitation tied to Tesla’s demanding work culture and visa dependence.

  • @Mirshe
    link
    35 days ago

    Even domestically, you’ll always find some dumbasses willing to sell their entire lives to make ends meet. I know after my layoff from an environmental monitoring company, all the work my region was doing got shifted to a single team down in Kentucky who was already doing 12hr days. They’re now doing 16-18hrs last I heard, 6 days a week because they’re covering 3 separate states with 4 people, for 2/3 of the hourly pay I was making.

    This is a worker exploitation problem compounded by a short-term vs long-term thought process.