We’ve just gotten news that Elon Musk has decided to lock out contractors unless a direct employee of Tesla vouches for them.

This in and of itself, is kind of crappy, but it might be necessary, as a rapid ramp up in contract employees without proper planning can cause a problem.

What takes this into Jeff Bezos (who makes Ernst Stavro Blofeld look like Florence Nightingale) territory is referring to the folks you want to fire as, “Barnicles.”

He’s got to be holding an open call audition for a white Persian cat:

Elon Musk is apparently planning to purge Tesla factories of contractors in the strangest way possible. The company CEO is planning to cut off access to the company to any contractor who doesn’t have a Tesla employee to vouch for the quality of their work.
In a recent email sent to Tesla employees and obtained by Electrek, Musk warned that outside workers will be denied entry into the factory come Monday morning. The only way to keep those extra laborers around is if a Tesla employee is willing to place their own livelihood on the line in order to attest to the contractor’s skills.
Here’s the full email from Musk, via Electrek:

Please note my comment below about contractor companies and consultants. I extended the performance evaluation deadline to provide more opportunity to demonstrate excellence, but now time is up.

Please send a note to HR before Monday justifying the excellence, necessity and trustworthiness by individual (not just the contractor company as a whole) of every non-Tesla person who has badge access to our buildings or network access to our systems.

By default, anyone who does not have a Tesla employee putting their reputation on the line for them will be denied access to our facilities and networks on Monday morning. This applies worldwide.

Time to scrub off the barnacles.

Thanks, Elon

Musk’s habit of referring to contract workers as “barnacles” also came up in the company’s first-quarter earnings call. In addition to throwing a mini-temper tantrum over questions from analysts, Musk also told investors:

The number of third-party contracting companies that we’re using has really gotten out of control, so we’re going to scrub the barnacles on that front. It’s pretty crazy. We’ve got barnacles on barnacles. So there’s going to be a lot of barnacle removal.

Seriously, I’d do up a Downfall rant and upload it to Youtube, but his actual communications are pretty much a Downfall rant in and of themselves.

I don’t shop Amazon or Walmart, and I’m not going to buy a Tesla.

This is some seriously f%$#ed up sh%$.