Former Tesla executive Mike Tully is suing the company for an issue with a telework policy he says the company agreed to, then changed their minds. He says it caused an agonizing medical condition to reappear and nearly caused his marriage to fall apart.
Tully filed the suit last month in a California court and claimed Tesla offered him a work-from-home position. He then claims Tesla instead pulled the job offer from him and offered him a separate position, which would require him and his family to relocate.
He is calling it a “bait-and-switch” after “being promised and assured” he would not have to move for the role.
Tully was with Bank of America for sixteen years before he accepted a job at Tesla’s Fremont corporate offices. The job with Bank of America was in Irvine, California, roughly 400 miles south of Fremont, where his new position would be.
The complaint, according to The Independent, said that:
“He made it patently clear to everyone at Tesla that [leaving] Irvine was not negotiable.”
However, Tesla then asked Tully to relocate and his wife threatened to divorce him if he moved her and their two children. The complaint says he felt “completely blindsided and misled by Tesla and its leadership team.”
Tully started at Tesla in April 2022, and he received “excellent” performance reviews in his first two months at the automaker.
However, after two months, Tully’s position was impacted by CEO Elon Musk’s pushback against telework.
Tesla has had a very strict policy about work-from-home positions, as Musk said a few years ago that anyone working at the company would need to work 40 hours in a physical setting per week or resign.
Musk is also pushing for an end to federal telework, as he and Vivek Ramaswamy are heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Tully was given until December 2022 to move or he would be terminated. His reasons for not leaving Irvine were because of a family business that was there and his wife still managed, and his children planned to attend universities nearby.
However, the divorce threat and Chron’s and IBD issues appeared due to stress:
“They discussed various options, such as a nearby office or moving [Tully] to another division within the company that was within an easier commute distance. [The HR exec] stated he understood the concern, and he would get back to him.”
Tully was fired the next day. He is asking for punitive, economic, and special damages, along with injunctive relief that would prohibit Tesla from engaging in these behaviors in the future.
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