Tesla became the latest part of Elon Musk’s business empire to make it clear that criticism of the chief executive is unacceptable by firing a manager last month after he objected to a post on social media by Mr. Musk that referred to Nazi leaders.
Jared Ottmann, a manager and engineer who worked with Tesla’s battery suppliers, said he had been fired because he criticized Mr. Musk for a post on X that used the names of Nazis like Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring in a series of wordplay.
“Stop Göring your enemies,” Mr. Musk wrote on Jan. 23, adding, “Bet you did Nazi that coming.” He punctuated the post with a laughing-while-crying emoji.
Mr. Ottmann said on LinkedIn in late January that he was offended that Mr. Musk had referred “as a joke” to Nazis who were responsible for genocide.
“Starting in 2022 and especially the last week I’ve raised the issue internally multiple times, with managers, HR, legal compliance, investor relations,” Mr. Ottmann wrote, referring to behavior by Mr. Musk that he found objectionable. “And while overwhelmingly people offer personal support, Tesla as a company has remained silent.”
Tesla did not reply to a request for comment.
Mr. Musk’s companies, which include SpaceX and X, have a history of punishing dissent. In 2022, SpaceX, which makes rockets, fired nine employees who had called on the company to distance itself from social media comments by Mr. Musk, including one in which he mocked sexual harassment accusations against him. Some of those employees later filed unfair-labor-practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.
Mr. Ottmann’s critical remarks, and Tesla’s reaction, are the latest indication of the disruption caused by Mr. Musk’s right-wing politics. He has supported a far-right party in Germany whose members have been fined by the government for using Nazi slogans. Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency has also made him a polarizing figure.
Signs of dissent at Tesla have not been isolated to Mr. Ottmann. Last month during a meeting at Tesla’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif., employees vented their frustrations about Mr. Musk’s political activities, leading a manager to say he was also discouraged by the chief executive’s behavior.
Mr. Ottmann confirmed Thursday that he had been fired. He declined to comment further, referring questions to Jana Moser, a lawyer in Santa Monica, Calif. Ms. Moser did not reply to a request for comment.
This fall, a SpaceX employee was fired after writing on an internal message board that he hoped Mr. Musk would stop wearing company apparel during his campaign appearances for Mr. Trump, three people familiar with incident said. During an October rally in Butler, Pa., for example, Mr. Musk wore an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt — which SpaceX sells in its company store — as he jumped up and down onstage.
The employee wrote that it wouldn’t be appropriate for workers to wear political clothing to the office and, therefore, that company apparel should not be worn at campaign events. A few days after his post, the company revoked the employee’s access to internal systems, though it later reinstated the employee after determining there was no violation of company policies, the people said.
The employee resigned weeks later. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Musk has also fired workers at X who criticized him. In the wake of his $44 billion takeover of the company, then called Twitter, in 2022, several employees posted critiques of the billionaire on the platform. Mr. Musk argued with some of them online, and they were later fired.
The firings are at odds with Mr. Musk’s often-stated goal to defend free speech. He has offered to fund lawsuits against employers who fire workers because of things they posted on X. In 2024, he funded a suit for a former worker at the payments company Block after she was fired for inflammatory posts she made on a pseudonymous X account.
Investors in Tesla, the only publicly traded company that Mr. Musk runs, are also worried that his political activities are alienating some buyers and that he is spending too much time in Washington and not enough time addressing slumping car sales. Shares of the company have declined about 40 percent from a high set on Dec. 17.
