Tesla revoked internships weeks before start date, students say

Students have said Tesla revoked their summer internships. Sean Gallup/ Getty Images

• Two students posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday saying their Tesla internships had been rescinded.
• The students said their offers were revoked just three weeks before they were set to start.
• Tesla continues to make further cuts after slashing 10% of its staff last month. 

Tesla has been revoking summer internships less than a month before the new interns were set to start, leaving ambitious college kids scrambling for new professional plans, students say.

Two students who said they were would-be Tesla interns posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday saying their offers were rescinded just three weeks before they were set to join the electric-vehicle company. It isn’t clear how many offers have been rescinded.

Bloomberg was the first to report that Tesla was reneging on summer internships following the company’s layoffs earlier this year. The automaker cut more than 10% of its workforce last month, and CEO Elon Musk has signaled he isn’t done making cuts.

The billionaire announced in a Monday email that two senior executives were leaving and their divisions were being dissolved. Business Insider reported last month that some Tesla employees felt stuck in limbo, worried they were next.

Joshua Schreiber, a student at Miami University, said in a LinkedIn post that he received an email from Tesla about flight information but that less than three hours later, his internship offer was “gone.”

“Yes, it sucks my start date was 3 weeks away. Yes, it sucks I spent thousands on housing,” he wrote. “Yes, it sucks to experience this in college.”

“Still, my favorite quote continues to be ‘We’re not the product of our circumstance, but a product of our response,'” Schreiber wrote, saying he was “optimistic” and open to new roles.

Brook Gura, a communications student at the University of Texas at Austin, shared a similar story, saying she received a call on Tuesday telling her the internship offer had been rescinded. Gura chalked it up to Tesla’s recent layoffs.

Diana Rosenberg, a technical lead at Tesla, also blamed the layoffs in a LinkedIn post, saying she was “deeply sad” to lose a prospective intern on her team and was asking her professional network to help.

“Please make our loss your gain,” Rosenberg said.

BI reached out to Tesla, Schreiber, Gura, and Rosenberg for comment.

Tesla said in a 2022 impact report that it hired more than 3,000 college students each year for internships.

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