I don't follow the Electrek website but I don't believe it's known to be a great source of accurate information.
Electrek was not the original source, and there has been zero denial that the email is real over the last month.
Does anyone else know anything more? I too would really like to know why this happened.
Yes, there are 42 pages of this story arc. There really has been zero pushback that the simple story is this:
Elon told Tinucci to lay off ~20% of her staff.
She pushed back at around ~15%.
Elon told her that it's either 20% or everyone.
She said no, so he fired everyone to send a message.
The email leaks, and Elon tweets "don't worry, critical sites will still be built"
There are hundreds of news articles about the supercharger team being let go and how surprising it is for Tesla to do so.
Elon tweets "We're still spending $500M this year on superchargers"
A few days later, Elon started re-hiring some of the laid off people.
That's it. After that, it's up to your own personal opinion if this is the work of a genius CEO with strong plans, of if this is the work of someone that values unquestioning loyalty more than strong management or business performance, and that's why this thread is 40 pages long.