Former Tesla employees are suing the company for violating federal law.
Two Gigafactory workers have launched legal action against the electric supercar manufacturer - whose CEO and founder is Elon Musk - after accusing the company of letting go 500 people without the required notice.
According to court documents filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield in the US District Court, Western District of Texas, they allege that 60 notification period mandated by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act was not respected for members of staff let go from the Nevada-based factory in May and June.
The complaint reads: "Tesla has simply notified the employees that their terminations would be effective immediately.”
Their legal representation called Tesla ignoring nationwide law “shocking”.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer representing the pair told Reuters: "It's pretty shocking that Tesla would just blatantly violate federal labor law by laying off so many workers without providing the required notice.”
She is currently penning an emergency motion to prevent Tesla from being allowed to get staff to sign a release for a week’s worth of severance pay.
Elon - who is currently attempting to buy Twitter for $42 billion - called the lawsuit “trivial” while appearing Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum.
The 50-year-old billionaire said, according to Reuters: "Let's not read too much into a pre-emptive lawsuit that has no standing. It seems like anything related to Tesla gets a lot of clicks, whether it is trivial or significant. I would put that lawsuit you're referring to in the trivial category."
