Former Loyal Employee Issues Stark Warning: “Elon Musk Must Step Down and Sell All His Shares—It Might Be Tesla’s Only Hope”

“When it comes to car sales at Tesla—I think the game is over,” the former employee stated bluntly.

In May, amid a growing global backlash against Tesla and a wave of targeted sabotage aimed at CEO Elon Musk, former Tesla dealership manager Matthew LaBrot launched a bold campaign titled “Tesla Employees Against Elon.” Framed as an act of resistance, the campaign cost him his job almost instantly.

We previously covered LaBrot’s symbolic act—a declaration of rebellion against Musk’s increasingly controversial political moves. Now, in an explosive new interview with Hard Reset, LaBrot unveils the full extent of Tesla’s internal transformation in just the past few months.

LaBrot was once an avid supporter of Tesla. Despite being fired, he continues to drive both a Model Y and a Cybertruck. A self-described “electric vehicle activist,” LaBrot insists that his issue isn’t with the brand—but with Elon Musk. As stated clearly on his campaign website: “The problem is Elon.”

“This isn’t new to me,” LaBrot said of his digital protest. “For nearly six years, I’ve been working to fight misinformation about electric vehicles and push that mission forward.”

But everything changed, he explained, when the company’s top leadership began undermining Tesla’s very mission—driving away the customers who once believed in it.

“When the person running the company becomes the biggest obstacle to its core mission, my priorities changed,” he said. “At that point, I had to become an activist to save the company.”

LaBrot began working for Tesla in 2019 and witnessed firsthand the slow-building skepticism surrounding Elon Musk. In recent years, however, he noticed that the biggest reason customers were leaving Tesla wasn’t about EVs at all—but about Musk himself.

“We started seeing returning customers slowly distance themselves from us,” LaBrot recalled. “That’s when I started paying attention to what he was saying on Twitter and the political stances he was beginning to take.”

For LaBrot, the breaking point came when Musk’s inflammatory public statements became impossible to ignore.

“When something happened, I used to think, ‘Tesla will handle it.’ In 2010, CEOs were fired for cheating on their spouses. And here’s this guy doing all sorts of insane things, and Tesla says nothing?”

That’s when LaBrot realized the rot was internal, particularly as Tesla’s board of directors not only stood by Musk—but continued to elevate him as the face of the company.

Now, LaBrot says he’s not at all surprised to see those decisions backfiring—and dragging Tesla’s senior leadership into dangerous territory.

“I think they’re about to crash,” he warned. “I expect sales to plummet—maybe even lower than in Q1.”

When asked whether Musk could still repair the damage he’s done to the brand, the former Tesla manager was deeply pessimistic.

“I don’t think he can win back the people who’ve already turned their backs on Tesla—unless he steps down,” LaBrot said flatly.

“And even that might not be enough,” he added. “A lot of people I’ve spoken to want him to sell all his shares—which I don’t believe he’ll ever do. But as far as Tesla’s car business goes, I’d say: the game is over.”