Fremont, CA – Uproar hits the media as electric car company, TESLA comes under fire for allegedly allowing it’s employees to have the choice not to come to work due to the COVID-19 pandemic then ordering their termination for “Failure to return to work”. 

Two workers by the name of Jessica Naro and Carlos Gabriel had cited to the media that they were send an email from the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk through the company internal email blast that it was understandable for workers not to come to work if they felt it was not appropriate due to risks of COVID-19 and fear of infecting their families. 

Many workers had opted for this and stayed in contact with their Human Resources admin and immediate superiors but the result of their choice had them receive termination notices for not being easily reachable and not coming to work. The workers had agreed to unpaid leave during their choice to not come in to work but seeing as Elon Musk had pushed for the opening of his company as “essential to the economy”, many workers were texted, called and emailed to return in force to the production line despite having no COVID-19 safety directives in place.

Mixed reactions comes from the workers who felt blindsided by the termination notices but a few others believed it had more to do with the politics outside the company than in considering the wearing of masks and observing social distancing was being openly challenged in the American landscape where many feel it went against their civil liberties while others wanted to be safe than sorry.

Elon Musk’s actions comes from another issue that had hit the company when all major automobile companies were allowed to resume work except for TESLA, which prompted the innovative founder to bring the battle into the open that his company was singled out and stated his thoughts to the public that the directives for automobiles resuming except his company was “messed up”, he tweeted.

Some workers explained that personal safety was something people should take into account on their own as there were visibly some workers who decided to wear masks and would put their clothes in separate bags so as not to contaminate their families should they get infected with the pandemic.

Only Jessica Naro has been called back to ask when she’d like to return to work but no word so far for Carlos Gabriel who cited  they were fired because they were too vocal about the plant’s lack of COVID-19 safety amidst the pandemic.