Why Did Tesla Cut Salaries?

In 2020, Tesla CEO Elon Musk wanted to give collective raises to employees at the Shanghai Gigafactory—seemingly great news. Unexpectedly, domestic automakers collectively opposed it, forcing Tesla to reduce base salaries from 10,000 yuan to 8,000, then down to 5,000, with benefits directly cut in half.

The reason? Tesla's salary increases would disrupt the market and cause employees to jump ship to competitors.

There's another unspoken point: when worker wages rise, the boss naturally earns less. Even so, Tesla's compensation still exceeds most domestic automakers.

What's more absurd is that Musk felt guilty toward Shanghai factory workers and secretly increased their performance bonuses—only to have certain automakers report him for it.

In contrast, German Tesla factory workers recently struck, complaining about eight-hour workdays over five days and average salaries of 4,200 euros at Tesla, calling it a sweatshop. What does 4,200 euros mean? Workers can buy two grams of gold with one day's wages.

The German Tesla factory offers the best benefits among all global Tesla plants, while the Shanghai Tesla factory has the lowest global wages but highest efficiency.

Domestic automakers pursue refrigerators, color TVs, and big sofas—throwing money at marketing—while Tesla focuses on making cars safer and smarter.

You can criticize Tesla's bare interior and humanoid-hostile hidden door handles, but you must admit Tesla is currently the clear leader in new energy vehicles.

This raises an important question: why can automakers working 12-hour double shifts with outsourced labor not compete with Tesla's five-day workweek?

Fundamentally, it's a corporate culture problem. If a company relentlessly exploits its own employees, how can you expect it to treat consumers well?

If a company can only cut costs through employee exploitation, can its product quality possibly be good?

That said, it's encouraging that many Chinese automakers are genuinely investing in R&D rather than marketing gimmicks, and many are developing technology rapidly.

With these enterprises, I believe we can definitely surpass Tesla.