Ex-Tesla executive sues Elon Musk's company after being fired over its return to office policy

A former Tesla executive has sued the company for hiring him for a remote role and thenimmediately threatening to fire him if he did not show up in the office. Mike Tully, who was an  compliance and operational risk specialist at Elon Musk's company, lived about 650 km away from Tesla's corporate office. He said that to comply with the return to office police, he would have had to move cities and even risk his marriage.

In his petition, Tully accused Tesla of getting him onboard after “being promised and assured” that he wouldn’t be required to move. The condition was important to Tully because he had an agonizing medical condition. Before this, the 55-year-old had worked with Bank of America for 16 years, the Independent reported.

Tully mentioned in his complaint that “he made it patently clear to everyone at Tesla that [leaving] Irvine [his hometown] was not negotiable,” and the relevant higher-ups vowed this would not be an issue. But when the company began to enforce its work from office policy, Tully, whose wife threatened to file for divorce if he insisted on uprooting her and their two children, felt “completely blindsided and misled by Tesla and its leadership team,” the complaint stated.

Moreover, his medical condition worsened due to the job-related stress he was experiencing. Tully claimed he informed the company’s HR department about his condition, but that he was fired anyway.