By News18
Elon Musk鈥檚 increasingly visible political leanings and controversial public behaviour are not just making headlines but also shaking the foundations of his own company. Tesla, once a beacon of clean energy innovation, is now seeing cracks emerge from within, as even long-time employees begin to walk away. One such exit is turning heads; that of Trae Cervantes, an engineering technician who spent seven years with Tesla before abruptly resigning. His reason? Elon Musk.
In an interview with Business Insider, Cervantes revealed that he could no longer reconcile his personal values with the image his CEO was projecting. He said that working with Tesla felt like he was compromising his moral values every day. He recounted the emotional toll of staying with a company whose figurehead, in his eyes, had strayed far from its founding mission. 鈥淚 could not compromise my values,鈥 he told Business Insider.
Cervantes began his journey with Tesla back in 2018, joining the Nevada-based Gigafactory as a production associate. Without any formal college education, he found the company offered rare opportunity 鈥 good pay, room for growth, and respect for hard work. The 12-hour shifts were gruelling, but the environment was driven, forward-looking, and deeply tied to a vision of a cleaner, tech-driven future. 鈥淭esla changed my life,鈥 Cervantes acknowledged, adding that it gave him purpose.
But somewhere along the way, that sense of purpose eroded.
I worked at Tesla for 7 years. I quit because I couldn’t support Elon Musk any longer. https://t.co/WfIUhKTgK7
鈥 Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) June 28, 2025
Cervantes pointed to a shift in company culture; one that increasingly revolved not around innovation, but around Musk himself. He described a growing 鈥減ersonality cult鈥 inside Tesla, where even moments of controversy, like Musk鈥檚 on-camera marijuana use on the Joe Rogan Experience, were turned into T-shirt slogans at the factory. Cervantes kept working through it all, convincing himself that the mission of sustainable transportation was still worth the noise.
That changed when Musk acquired Twitter.
According to Cervantes, the move marked a turning point. Musk鈥檚 growing involvement in US politics, including public endorsements, online feuds, and what Cervantes described as 鈥済iveaways to court voters鈥, left him disillusioned. He began revisiting the CEO鈥檚 older statements, digging into Tesla鈥檚 ambitious but still-unmet promises, particularly around full self-driving technology. The more he read, the more uneasy he felt.
But what finally broke him was a particular video. In it, Musk appears to mimic a Nazi salute, a moment Cervantes said left him ashamed for the first time of where he worked. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 leave because of the company,鈥 he told his supervisor, but because of 鈥渢he face that now represents it.鈥
Tesla, meanwhile, is feeling the fallout beyond just its workforce. Several European companies have reportedly removed Tesla vehicles from their fleets in protest of Musk鈥檚 political stance and public persona, seeing him as a liability rather than an asset.
For Cervantes, the decision to quit wasn鈥檛 about career growth or corporate culture, it was personal.