ELON Musk and Tesla made the decision to lay off close to 300 janitors and bus drivers despite the fact that the company's stock quickly rebounded after last month's market crash.

These men and women are now struggling to make ends meet while the company's founder has watched his wealth skyrocket despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

2 Elon Musk gas watched his personal wealth skyrocket in April, adding $650 million to his fortune Credit: Reuters

Motherboard spoke to some of those who have been impacted by the shut down in Silicon Valley, which like the rest of the country has shut its offices door to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Closed offices meant that janitors and bus drivers were no longer necessary employees, but tech giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook opted to continue paying these hourly wage workers.

Tesla, which IS one of the world's most profitable automobile producers, decided instead to quickly lay off their most vulnerable employees.

They then stood by that decision even as the company's stock quickly rebounded following a steep drop in late March.

That was good news for the company and Musk, but not for those janitors and bus drivers.

“Early on we had most tech giants, Google, Facebook, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, all committed to keep workers on or offering continued pay and benefits in the case of layoffs,” said Dianne Solis, the vice president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, which represents 11,000 janitors in northern California.

“We were hoping Tesla would follow suit but they are an outlier.”

This means that Esther Garcia Servin, a single mother with two children, cannot afford to pay her May rent.

The bus drivers were all fired in late March and the janitors followed soon after, while their company's founder fired off tone-def tweets about the pandemic.

He initially called the pandemic dumb, and let workers go with no pay while tweeting his faith in a study that said the pandemic could be stopped after two or three weeks of quarantening all Americans.'

Then, after he had dismissed these 280 men and women, he tweeted on April 6:"u r o k."

And Musk certainly was by then, watching his wealth skyrocket at a far faster rate than many of his contemporaries.

His former employees on the other hand wondered how they were going to make ends meet.

“This is having a devastating effect on workers, who are low wage workers and not seen,” explained Solis.

“They’re subcontracted and that’s the way Tesla tries to remove any responsibility. Many of these workers have chronic conditions like diabetes and don’t have healthcare. There are no other jobs out there right now, and these workers don’t know how they’ll pay May rent or put food on the table.”

2 Tesla let 280 wage workers go while their counterparts like Apple and Facebook decided to keep them all on payroll Credit: Reuters

To pay all those workers for 12 weeks at an hourly rate of $15 would have cost Tesla $2.016 million.

Instead, Musk let them go while he sat back and saw his wealth grow by $650- million this month alone according to Forbes, bringing his net worth to $37.4 billion.

Others in Silicon Valley have stepped in where Musk has not, with some companies providing work and others helping these workers get health insurance by extending their own coverage.

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These employees are expected to return t tesla once the economy reopens, but the damage is done

"Elon Musk is making a conscious decision to say Tesla doesn’t care about its contractors,” explained Maria Noel Fernandez.

The campaign director at the grassroots community organization, Silicon Valley Rising,then added: “Musk is saying ‘we’re not standing by our workers and their communities.’ And he could afford it. It’s a decision.”