Elon Musk’s latest “disruptive innovation” is to return to the days of the company town and the company store, where if you lose your job, they kick you out of your house:

Tesla’s Nevada-based Gigafactory could be undergoing a massive expansion which has the potential to include on-site accommodations for employees, reports the Las Vegas Review Journal. In a recent conversation with Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval at the state’s first annual technology summit, CEO Elon Musk discussed the automaker’s plans to hire more than 20,000 new workers for its manufacturing facility.

Currently, the manufacturing facility, coined Gigafactory 1, employs around 7,000 workers and produces the bulk of battery cells and packs found in Tesla vehicles. Despite producing an annual energy storage capacity output of 20 GWh, Tesla has acknowledged the need for batteries is virtually insatiable in order to meet the increasing demand for electric vehicles.

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“The biggest constraint on growth here is housing and infrastructure.” said Musk according to the Review, “We’re looking at creating a housing compound on site at the Gigafactory, using kind of high-quality mobile homes.”

So, you live in a company town, and if you try to unionize, you get tossed out, and end up homeless, and your kid is kicked out of the company school, etc., just like in the 1890s.

Why does the Silicon Valley model of “Innovation” sound so much like the worst excess of the Gilded Age?