Tesla has made the decision to cut Summer internships from its plans in a shocking move as it continues to cut its employee headcount.
Tesla’s broad layoff scope has impacted everyone from executives to lower-level associates to Service techs as it trims its workforce by roughly 14,000 workers.
It now seems that college students who landed internships with the leader in electric vehicles are being hit with similar messages, reporting that their offers for the Summer have been pulled.
Bloomberg first reported the story, quoting several students who landed internships with Tesla for the upcoming Summer. They woke up to see their offers revoked:
“At 8:46am, I opened a Tesla email for flight info. By 11:25am, my internship offer was gone.”
The Miami University student who first spoke to the publication about losing their internship said that he had already spent “thousands” of dollars getting housing together for the Summer.
Another student said their internship was pulled just three weeks before her start date:
“While I am incredibly disappointed that I will not have the summer I intended to have, I know that this moment will only help me grow stronger as a professional.”
The timing of the internship cuts is challenging because Spring semesters at colleges across the country are set to end in the coming weeks. Internships are usually landed in February, March, and April, and companies are likely done taking applications and have their teams for the Summer configured.
This leaves those who chose Tesla for their Summer internships in a tough situation, and it may be difficult to find something comparable.
According to Glassdoor, a site that acts like Yelp for workers, summer interns at Tesla make between $18 and $28 an hour. The site offers information on everything from company size to salary estimates.
The students are not the only ones who find themselves scrambling for new opportunities. Tesla has slashed a significant portion of its workforce over the past month to deal with its difficult period between two waves of growth. Cost-cutting is the company’s focus at the moment and for what seems to be the foreseeable future.
Nobody appears to be safe, either. Earlier this week, Tesla’s Supercharger team was let go, including two high-ranking executives who have helped the infrastructure grow over the past several years.
It was a shocking move, considering Tesla now offers charging to EVs built by other automakers. CEO Elon Musk said Superchargers will still be built, just at a slower pace.
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