Operational dumpster fire. Manufacturing process control and quality assurance is amateur at best. Senior management overpromises on schedule and delivery numbers (driven from the top) but does not have the industry expertise and patience/discipline to deliver. Management's solution to their own incompetence is to work their employees harder, but this negative cycle is unsustainable. Many of the best employees leave and take their institutional knowledge with them. This exodus impacts production and management responds by making the new employees and those that stay work even harder still, driving more of the good employees out the door. You get the idea.
Operations management is young and inexperienced. There is no Tim Cook to match Elon's Steve Jobs act. Few managers have prior automotive industry experience. Many decisions are seat-of-the-pants and it shows in the numbers and workflow. Operations executive turnover is high as Elon has little patience when these ill-prepared managers do not produce quick results. As a result of turnover and general disorganization, org decisions (hiring, promotion, layoffs) are largely political, not driven by KPIs or performance.
Pay is well below market. Much of the compensation package is given as equity, but long gone are the days when the equity awards had upside potential. The stock price is sky high, and employees are likely to see their equity award's value shrink or remain flat over their vesting cycle.
Overall, employees are treated as expendable. Training opportunities are basically nonexistence. Promotion is political and extremely competitive (unless you worked with a manager at their previous company or came from Apple).
The few fringe perks once offered (free cereal and fruit, lunch vouchers for those who don't drive to work, and the occasional company party) have been almost entirely cut as a symbolic austerity gesture by finance.
With acquisition of Solar City, an already unfocused, disorganized operation now has a huge curveball to deal with. I am very concerned that this integration will be the death of the company.
