Tesla, the electric vehicle company of billionaire Elon Musk, was accused of favoring visa holders in front of Americans When making work decisions to pay less.
According to a collective claim filed before a Federal Court of San Francisco, Tesla violates the Federal Civil Rights Law for its “systematic preference” when hiring to visa holders. He also points out that the company dismisses American citizens at disproportionate rates compared to visa holders.
According to the demand, Tesla depends on H-1B visa holders to obtain qualified workers, including what happened in 2024, when hired about 1,355 visa holders While saying goodbye to more than 6,000 national workers, “the vast majority” of which it is believed that they were American citizens.
Tesla did not respond immediately to comments requests.
The lawsuit was filed by the software engineer Scott Taub and human resources specialist Sofia Brander, who said that Tesla refused to hire them after learning that they would not need sponsorship to work, which indicated that they were American citizens.
Taub said he was dissuared to find a job after telling him that it was “only for H1B”, and that he was not invited to interview for a second job. Brander said that Tesla did not interview her for two works, although she had been twice hired.
“Although workers with visa represent a fraction of the United States labor, Tesla prefers to hire these candidates rather than US citizens, since they can pay visa dependents less than Americans who do the same job, a practice in the industry known as’Salary theft‘”, says the complaint.
It is not clear how the plaintiffs plan to demonstrate the alleged systemic discrimination of Tesla in hiring and dismissals.
The demand asks for damages and losses for all US citizens who requested jobs in Tesla in the United States and were not hired, or worked for Tesla there and were fired.
