Tesla is desperately looking for staff for its new plant in Grünheide.
Now the case of a Daimler engineer is causing a stir.
He was fired before his first day at work.
The reason is surprising.
Daimler
engineer and YouTuber Stefan Schwunk signs a contract with
Tesla
and is happy about it on his YouTube channel.
The video goes
viral
and has a huge media coverage.
But
that doesn't go down well
with the Californian
electric car pioneer
.
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Berlin - Former Daimler engineer Stefan Schwunk wanted to look for luck at Tesla.
He signed a contract there in December 2020, was really looking forward to his new job in the new Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin - and was fired again before his first day at work.
For Tesla's taste, Schwunk was probably too happy about his job change.
Stefan Schwunk was an engineer at Daimler for many years, is an avowed fan of electric cars and therefore works in the field of electric mobility on his YouTube channel Schwunkvoll.
The joy of his fans was probably just as great as Schwunk himself when he announced the change from Daimler to Tesla in a video.
His dream: “Maybe one day show the factory from below, maybe one day go into the issues that are negatively picked up in the press.” Schwunk and Tesla: That seemed like a lid on a pot.
The video quickly went viral on YouTube.
It was clicked more than 110,000 times in around ten days.
Then Schwunk suddenly deleted the video.
Tesla engineer for a day: April Fool's joke becomes bitter truth for Stefan Schwunk
On April 1, the former Daimler and now Tesla engineer surprisingly announced that he was now working for Elli, a wholly owned Volkswagen subsidiary in the field of e-mobility.
What Schwunk only sold his followers as an April Fool's joke turns out to be the bitter truth: He's already gone from his job at Tesla without even having to work.
What happened?
In the podcast
Moin Tesla!
Schwunk was now answering questions about the reasons - at least as far as he is allowed to.
This seems to be the crux of the matter.
When signing the contract, Tesla would have assured him that it would continue to operate its YouTube channel, but put a lot of confidentiality agreements on the table.
“I thought they would be a little more open,” admits Schwunk and explains that this caused him “a bit of a stomach grumble” even before he started his job.
Tesla engineer and YouTuber in one: Not a good combination
Schwunk didn't want to disclose internals anyway.
But apparently the American electric car company already saw the announcement of the job change as critical.
That makes Schwunk sound between the lines in the podcast.
His change video got the ball rolling: Schwunk received loads of interview requests, daily newspapers reported and a French publication published an alleged interview with him, which was then even
picked
up on
the big US blog
Cleantechnica
.
The problem: Schwunk had never spoken to the French.
When the fake interview had long since done its damage, the platform admitted on Twitter that it had not conducted an interview with the German YouTuber.
That didn't help Schwunk either.
Schwunk was supposed to start at Tesla in February, but his fame cost him the job.
Before his first day at work, Schwunk was asked by Tesla for a meeting in January, in which they agreed to terminate the contract, he now explains.
Tesla engineer Stefan Schwunk fired immediately: "Tesla got ahead of me with this conversation"
The termination of the employment contract also seems to be in Schwunk's sense.
"Tesla got ahead of me with this conversation".
But then he can't resist a little swipe at Elon Musk.
"I think there is a lot to be said for Tesla that there is someone who is allowed to be active in social media - and everyone else is not." Anyway, not working for Tesla now, but switching to VW subsidiary Elli , he described as "one of the best decisions" of his life.