After a tenure of eight years, a Tesla engineer has quit the company — and directed a seething missive toward his boss, Elon Musk.
"I do need to address the elephant in the room: the main reason I'm leaving is that I think Elon has dealt huge damage to Tesla's mission (and to the health of democratic institutions in several countries)," Giorgio Balestrieri, a staff algorithms engineer who joined in 2017, wrote in a scathing LinkedIn post last week. "Beyond that, Elon's leadership and decision making seem seriously compromised."
Balestrieri worked on Autobidder, Tesla's energy trading platform that allows individuals and businesses to monetize the energy they store in battery systems, often generated by renewables like wind and solar.
According to Balestrieri, the company's battery storage initiatives are "key to operating low-carbon grids," while "data and algorithms have taken center stage in the energy transition."
But he no longer feels that Musk is committed to championing that transition to a greener energy future.
"This is not just about politics: it's about lying to the public, manipulating public discourse, targeting minorities and supporting climate change deniers and political forces aligned with the oil and gas industry," Balestrieri wrote. "I think it's fairly indisputable that the current US administration is slowing down the energy transition."
Musk built Tesla and his own brand on a green promise: that solar panels and electric cars would help us get out of climate doom.
But Musk then became a close ally of president Donald Trump — at least until a spectacular falling out earlier this year — whose administration has targeted climate science and made overtures to the fossil fuels industry. In his first days in office, Trump signed executive orders that promoted oil, coal, and gas companies, eliminated pollution protections, and declared a national "energy" emergency to ramp up production of fossil fuels. He also formally withdrew the US from the Paris climate accord, an international agreement to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, for the second time.
Trump has since tried to freeze billions of dollars in climate spending earmarked by Congress and his predecessor Joe Biden, though a judge has temporarily blocked the order. Meanwhile, federal research grants are being canceled for merely containing the word "climate," government websites are being scrubbed of any information on climate change, and NASA's crucial climate satellite missions are set to be destroyed.
Where has Musk stood on all of this? Who can say, since he's been too busy eviscerating the federal government, raging against immigrants and allegedly getting high out of his mind. But not too long ago, he did take a stand: during Trump's first term, Musk famously stormed out of his advisory council roles after the president pulled the US out of the Paris accords, and was hailed as a hero.
"Climate change is real," Musk tweeted in June 2017. "Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world."
That, incidentally, was the same year Balestrieri joined Tesla energy. Whatever warm feelings the stunt may have instilled have long gone cold, and it's safe to say that Musk's image as a eco-conscious, tree-planting champion has gone up in greenhouse-gas laden smoke.
"Given his huge (and growing, inexplicably) stake in Tesla," Balestrieri soberly reflected in the year of 2025, amid Tesla's plan to give Musk a trillion dollars in shares, "I can't convince myself anymore that this is the right place to be."
"I wish the best to everyone who will stick around and keep working to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy," he added, "and I hope the best for Tesla and Tesla Energy."
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