Tesla fires employee for posting genuine driver assist bungles on YouTube despite actually having no such policy

[Redaktion]

A Tesla employee, John Bernal, was fired last month after he put up a video on his YouTube channel showing some of the problems with the company's Full Self Driving (FSD) Beta software. Though Tesla didn't mention specifics in writing, Bernal said that he was verbally told his channel's content broke Tesla's policy and presented a conflict of interest.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Tesla-fires-employee-for-posting-genuine-driver-assist-bungles-on-YouTube-despite-actually-having-no-such-policy.608563.0.html

[ariliquin]

Sounds like no grounds for dismissal, sue them. 

[AndyFFx]

"The basic rule of Texas employment law is employment at will, which applies to all phases of the employment relationship - it means that absent a statute or an express agreement (such as an employment contract) to the contrary, either party in an employment relationship may modify any of the terms or conditions of employment, or terminate the relationship altogether, for any reason, or no particular reason at all, with or without advance notice."

[vertigo]

He can't sue, but the PR from this likely won't be good. Tesla is not only discouraging testers from being publicly critical about the software's capabilities, but has now also fired an employee for doing so. They say they want testers to improve it, but at the same time want to hide its flaws. The only conflict of interest here is that fact. This guy was just doing his part finding weaknesses so they could be fixed and showing others so they can see the status and progress of it and be aware of certain things that may be risky in order to be careful about them in their own driving and he gets fired for it. IMO just shows the true character of the company vs the public image they try to present. This simply shows not only the lack of transparency at Tesla but how against it they are.

[Jchilds]

Obvious conflict if you posting videos from work your paid to do on a site where your paid for the content you post. So who do you work for?
Plus common sense I get paid to design circuits but I'm not gonna post time laps of my circuit designs as on youtube.

[BuckUp]

Who paid this punk to post? Might as well throw in a few pics of Elon picking his nose.

[King rocker]

This may come as a shock to some (who are) but many people are not paid to post ..
Learn to deal with reality, fanboys, it's a useful skill.

[Ethan]

This is absolutely not true. I am a Tesla employee and I had papers that I had to sign stating I would not talk about the Tesla Model Y batteries. This is a big lie. The employee knew that there was policy against it and is making false claims because everyone is giving this so much attention. I will gladly send people the document I had to sign to prove that there is a policy, which stats not to talk about things that go on within the factory or the engineering buildings.

[WraithGD]

I do believe most companies would do the same thing. Like Disney, Six Flags, so yeah...

[Mitchell DeVore]

I've never worked at a company where posting insider information like this would NOT be grounds for dismissal.

[Articledumb]

Are you kidding me? How about you read their policy first before you write this clickbait article. Maybe they should fire you too for being an imbecile writer

[iCris]

It seems like someone just went on a power trip, the person who fired this guy doesn't understand how PR works and he'll probably be offered his job back if this blows up enough.

I don't understand why some of yall think he posted the kabby patty secret formula on YouTube, he literally just posted an FSD test that literally anyone else could do who paid for the FSD package, except those people will probably get even worse results since they're using an older software version.

This guy didn't reveal any program specifics, nor specify exactly what went wrong, he just did a test and posted it like hundreds of others do every day, you can't say he's lying just cause you had to sign an NDA for a completely separate thing that has nothing to do with this.

[vertigo]

It looks like iCris is the only one that actually read this article. The employee didn't post "insider information" or "videos from work [they were] paid to do" or the batteries or "things that go on within the factory or the engineering buildings." As iCris stated, he only filmed himself driving a Tesla, showing the issues so others are aware of them, something which is openly available to any member of the public that paid for the ability. These weren't exactly trade secrets. And frankly, when I watched the video, I had no idea he was an employee, and I felt he was very objective and balanced in his praise and criticism, and even when he criticized it wasn't in a negative way. IOW, the way he presented it in the video, IMO, reflected Tesla and FSD in a generally positive way, and their reaction to it did the opposite.