Tesla pays San Jose bakery $2K for cancelled order, while not necessarily covering all of The Giving Pies expenses and outlays, the snafu and ensuing media coverage has now led to more business than ever for owner, Voahangy Rasetarinera.
Free publicity which cost her wages, electricity, ingredients and a bundle of nerves…
A San Jose bakery that was ‘stiffed’ at the last minute after an order for 4000 mini pies for an upcoming Black History Month event at Tesla never came through has told of being compensated to the tune of $2,000 by Tesla CEO, Elon Musk.
Voahangy Rasetarinera of The Giving Pies had initially stood to make $16,000 for the order and on the good faith of Tesla and their representatives had knocked back other orders along with ramping up work and bringing on extra workers to get the ‘rush order’ off to Tesla.
Except it never happened, leaving Rasetarinera ‘put out’ for the lost money she had been anticipating from the order along with her having to foot the bill of a ramped up rush order, after Tesla doubled their initial order of 2000 pies to 4000 pies. Just as the baked goods were ready to be shipped out, a Tesla rep called at the last minute to cancel the order, leaving the bakery stranded.
Elon Musk, Tesla principal and primary owner, having previously promised to ‘make things good,’ gave the bakery $2,000 – which presumably was well received by Rasetarinera, while not necessarily going far enough in making good on the ‘ramped up’ expenses the owner had to personally cover.
‘To me, it was clear that Tesla’s corporate culture prioritized convenience over accountability, disregarding the livelihoods of small business owners like myself,’ Rasetarinera said in a Facebook post last week.
After Musk, apparently became aware of the issue through media coverage, he said he would make sure Rasetarinera got paid.
‘Just hearing about this. Will make things good with the bakery,’ Musk said in an X post on Friday. ‘People should always be able to count on Tesla trying its best.’
Rasetarinera told the Guardian by email three days later, ‘Tesla just paid the $2k that I was out of.’
The payment covers the cost of ingredients the company had purchased to fulfill the canceled order, KGO reported.
But it probably didn’t go far enough in meeting all of Resetarinera’s expenses, including the cost of labor, electricity and of course the anxiety and stress that the cancellation brought along.
‘When you’re a big corporation, $2,000 is pocket money, it’s nothing,’ Resetarinera said. ‘But for us, it’s a lot.’
But there was of course the free PR and plenty of it that the media coverage brought following the cancelled order with Tesla.
Over the weekend, hundreds of patrons lined up to order pies from the bakery in a show of support following the fracas
‘Oh my gosh, it’s incredible,’ Rasetarinera told NBC Bay Area. ‘I am blown away. I’m like, ‘I didn’t do it for that.’ I’m so grateful. It’s amazing. People are amazing.’
While she told the station Tesla offered her a new catering gig for a women’s day celebration in March, she turned it down because of a shortage of crust following the onslaught of new orders. Do you suppose…?
