Amazon is seeing some employees quit instead of moving to a new state as part of relocation mandate
Amazon workers hold signs during a walkout event at the company’s headquarters on May 31, 2023 in Seattle, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images News | Getty Images
As part of Amazon’s aggressive effort to get employees back to the office, the company is going a step further and demanding that some staffers move to a central hub to be with their team. Those who are unwilling or unable to comply are being forced to find work elsewhere, and some are choosing to quit, CNBC has learned.
Several employees spoke to CNBC about the new relocation requirement. An employee in Texas, who was hired in a remote role, said managers assured his team in March that nothing would change despite the return-to-office (RTO) mandate issued the prior month. But in July, the team was informed by management that they’d have to choose between working out of Seattle, New York, Austin, Texas, or Arlington, Virginia, according to internal correspondence.
Under the guidelines, remote workers are expected to have completed their move to a main hub by the first half of 2024, the document states. The employee, who doesn’t live near any of the designated cities, chose to leave Amazon after securing another position, in part due to uncertainty about future job security and the potential of higher living costs associated with the relocation with no guarantee of an increase in salary.
The person asked not to be named to avoid retaliation. CNBC spoke with three other employees in similar situations who all asked to remain anonymous.
Amazon spokesperson Rob Munoz confirmed the relocation policy, and said it affects a small percentage of the company’s workforce. The e-commerce giant said hub locations vary by team, and each team determines which locations are their hub. The company does provide relocation benefits to employees asked to move.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, so we decided that the best thing to do was to communicate directly with teams and individuals who are affected to ensure they’re getting accurate information that’s relevant to them,” Munoz said in a statement. “If an individual feels like they don’t have the information they need, we encourage them to talk with their HR business partner or their manager.”
The relocation requirement is escalating tensions between Amazon and some of its roughly 350,000 corporate employees over RTO plans after many employees moved away from their in-person office location during the Covid pandemic.
In May, Amazon began requiring that staffers work out of physical offices at least three days a week, shifting from a policy that left it up to individual managers to decide how often team members should be in the office. CEO Andy Jassy has extolled the benefits of in-person work, saying it leads to a stronger company culture and collaboration between employees.
Following the mandate, a group of employees walked out in protest at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Staffers also criticized how Amazon handled the decision to lay off 27,000 people as part of job cuts that began last year.
The company is slashing costs elsewhere as well. Amazon said it will end a perk next year that allows staffers to get one free drink at in-office coffee shops. The company also reduced the amount it reimburses for parking, and stopped providing free Uber rides to and from work, employees said.
Amazon said it still reimburses employees’ public transportation costs in all major metro areas, and provides free commuter shuttles and campus shuttles.
Some employees reprimanded
The return-to-office mandate has been a particularly thorny subject, and enforcement has been a challenge. Amazon sent out a notification earlier this month to some staffers informing them that they weren’t “meeting our expectation of joining your colleagues in the office at least three days a week,” according to a copy of the memo viewed by CNBC. “We expect you to start coming into the office three or more days a week now.”
Some staffers who received that notice had been in compliance with the mandate, while others had taken vacation or sick leave that was approved by their manager, one staffer said. Employees expressed their frustration over the notice in comments on an internal support ticket, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the matter.
Amazon responded to the ticket, explaining internally the notice was sent to employees who it determined had badged in fewer than three days a week for at least five of the past eight weeks or at least three of the past four weeks.
“If you believe that you received this email in error, please reach out to your manager to discuss your situation and ensure it is accurately reflected in the system,” the company said on the support site.
Amazon confirmed the authenticity of the internal correspondence. The company stressed it had called employees back to the office three days a week because it felt it would be beneficial for company culture.
“We knew that there would be some adjustment period, so we’ve worked to support people as they’ve figured out their routines,” Munoz said in a statement. “With three months under our belt, and a lot more people back in the office, we’re reiterating our expectation that people join their teammates at least three days in the office.”
Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.Com Inc., during the GeekWire Summit in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021.
David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For employees affected by the relocation policy, Amazon is asking that they move to a designated hub, which could be Seattle, Arlington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco or another main office. Some employees see it as a stark reversal from the company’s approach during the pandemic, when Amazon ramped up its recruiting outside of Seattle and Silicon Valley, and pledged to expand its presence in markets like Phoenix, Dallas and San Diego.
The employees who spoke to CNBC said they view the relocation requirement as onerous and significantly disruptive to their personal lives. In some cases, staffers are being asked to move out of state, which would require them to break their housing lease, or transition their children to new schools.
Amazon has informed the employees individually about the change, but the company hasn’t put out any official communication to the broader workforce. In late July, managers began informing employees that they’d soon be expected to work from a main hub location, and they could choose between relocating, finding another job internally or resigning. Some were told they had 30 to 60 days to make a decision, the staffers said.
Three employees based in different locations — Colorado, Utah and California — were each asked to relocate to Seattle. They told CNBC they’ve chosen to leave Amazon because moving would burden them financially or put too much strain on their family.
The employees said the relocation requirement made little sense to them, noting they already live within walking or commuting distance of an Amazon office where they’ve been working the mandated three days a week.
The prospect of transferring to a new role within the company isn’t seen as much of an option. Amazon paused corporate hiring last November as part of wider cost-cutting efforts, which translates into fewer job openings than normal. The staffers told CNBC they weren’t able to find much, if anything, in their current office that’s relevant to their expertise.
Still, it’s a difficult decision to quit, as companies, particularly in the tech industry, have been reducing headcount over the past year to reckon with rising inflation and economic uncertainty.
The crackdown at Amazon is leading to some bending of the rules. In a story last week about some of the RTO changes, Insider reported that some employees have considered using a family member’s address near an Amazon office, or agreed to relocate and then used the time they were given to move to look for another job.
The Colorado-based employee who was asked to move said that, adding it all up, the relocation requirement and Amazon’s broader effort to get people into the office make it feel as if leadership is “trying to make it less enjoyable to work there.”
WATCH: Amazon’s operating margins were three times better than expected
Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
At Tesla, vehicle sales are slumping, profits are thinning and revenue from regulatory credit sales are poised to dry up due to Republican-led policy changes.
In the past, CEO Elon Musk’s futuristic promises have convinced investors to look past top and bottom line numbers.
Not now.
Following another fairly dismal earnings report this week, Musk told analysts on the call that Tesla’s electric vehicles will soon become driverless, making money for owners while they sleep. He also said Tesla’s robotaxi service, which the company recently started testing in a limited capacity in Austin, Texas, will expand to other states, with a goal of being able to reach half the U.S. population by year-end, “assuming we have regulatory approvals.”
It didn’t matter.
Tesla shares plummeted 8% on Thursday as investors focused on the immediate challenges facing the company, including the rapid rise of lower-cost EV competitors, particularly in China, and a political backlash against Musk that harmed Tesla’s brand in the U.S. and Europe.
Automotive sales declined 16% year-over-year in the second quarter for the EV maker, with weak sales numbers continuing in Europe and California. Musk said there could be a “few rough quarters” ahead because of the EV credits expiring and President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The stock bounced back some on Friday, gaining 3.5%, but still ended the week down and has now fallen 22% this year, the worst performance among tech’s megacaps. The Nasdaq rose 1% for the week and is up more than 9% in 2025, closing at a record on Friday.
“Look, we love robotaxis. And robots,” wrote analysts at Canaccord Genuity, who recommend buying Tesla’s stock, in a note after the earnings report. “Over time, Tesla is well positioned to benefit from these future-forward opportunities.”
The analysts, however, said that they’re focused on the profit and loss statement, writing: “But we love growth too, in the here and now. We need the P&L dynamics to turn.”
Analysts at Jefferies described the earnings update as “a bit dull.” And Goldman Sachs said Tesla’s robotaxi effort is “still small” with limited technical data points.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Musk, who has previously called himself “pathologically optimistic,” has been able to sway shareholders and send the stock soaring at times with promises of self-driving cars, humanoid robots and more affordable EVs.
But after a decade of missed self-imposed deadlines on autonomous driving, Wall Street is watching Tesla fall behind Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China.
In Tesla’s shareholder deck, the company said the second quarter marked the start of its “transition from leading the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries to also becoming a leader in AI, robotics and related services.” The company didn’t offer any new guidance for growth or profits for the year ahead.
Regulatory hurdles
Business Insider reported on Friday that Tesla told staff its robotaxi service could launch in the San Francisco Bay Area as soon as this weekend.
But Tesla hasn’t applied for permits that would be required to run a driverless ridehailing service in California, CNBC confirmed. The company would first need authorizations from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
The CPUC told CNBC on Friday, that under existing permits, Tesla can only operate a human-driven chartered vehicle service, not carry passengers in robotaxis.
Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, on May 30, 2025.
Daniel Cole | Reuters
On the earnings call, Musk and other Tesla execs claimed the company was working on regulatory approvals to launch in Nevada, Arizona, Florida and other markets, in addition to San Francisco, but offered no details about what would be required.
Within Austin, the company said its robotaxi service had driven 7,000 miles, and that Tesla has been restricting its robotaxis’ to roads with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour. The Austin service involves a small fleet of about 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles equipped with the company’s latest self-driving systems.
The Tesla robotaxis rely on remote supervision by employees in a customer service center, and a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat, ready to intervene if needed.
Compare that to what Alphabet said on its second-quarter earnings call the same day as Tesla’s results.
“The Waymo Driver has now autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, and the team is testing across more than 10 cities this year, including New York and Philadelphia,” Alphabet said. Meanwhile, Waymo has become significant enough that Alphabet added a category to its Other Bets revenue description in its latest quarterly filing.
“Revenues from Other Bets are generated primarily from the sale of autonomous transportation services, healthcare-related services and internet services,” the filing said. The Other Bets segment remains relatively small, with revenue coming in at $373 million in the quarter.
Regardless of investor skepticism, Musk is more bullish than ever.
On Friday, the world’s richest person posted on his social network X that he thinks Tesla will someday be worth $20 trillion. On the earnings call earlier in the week, he said that when it comes to AI for cars and robots, “Tesla is actually much better than Google by far” and “much better than anyone at real world AI.”
CORRECTION: The Waymo Driver has now autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, according to Alphabet. A previous version misstated the number of miles.
WATCH: Tough quarter for Tesla
A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025.
Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In an earnings call this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased an expansion of his company’s fledgling robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area and other U.S. markets.
But California regulators are making clear that Tesla is not authorized to carry passengers on public roads in autonomous vehicles and would require a human driver in control at all times.
“Tesla is not allowed to test or transport the public (paid or unpaid) in an AV with or without a driver,” the California Public Utilities Commission told CNBC in an email on Friday. “Tesla is allowed to transport the public (paid or unpaid) in a non-AV, which, of course, would have a driver.”
In other words, Tesla’s service in the state will have to be more taxi than robot.
Tesla has what’s known in California as a charter-party carrier permit, which allows it to run a private car service with human drivers, similar to limousine companies or sightseeing services.
The commission said it received a notification from Tesla on Thursday that the company plans to “extend operations” under its permit to “offer service to friends and family of employees and to select members of the public,” across much of the Bay Area.
But under Tesla’s permit, that service can only be with non-AVs, the CPUC said.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles told CNBC that Tesla has had a “drivered testing permit” since 2014, allowing the company to operate AVs with a safety driver present, but not to collect fees. The safety drivers must be Tesla employees, contractors or designees of the manufacturer under that permit, the DMV said.
In Austin, Texas, Tesla is currently testing out a robotaxi service, using its Model Y SUVs equipped with the company’s latest automated driving software and hardware. The limited service operates during daylight hours and in good weather, on roads with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour.
Robotaxis in Austin are remotely supervised by Tesla employees, and include a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat. The service is now limited to invited users, who agree to the terms of Tesla’s “early access program.”
On Friday, Business Insider, citing an internal Tesla memo, reported that Tesla told staff it planned to expand its robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on that report.
In a separate matter in California, the DMV has accused Tesla of misleading consumers about the capabilities of its driver assistance systems, previously marketed under the names Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (or FSD).
Tesla now calls its premium driver assistance features, “FSD Supervised.” In owners manuals, Tesla says Autopilot and FSD Supervised are “hands on” systems, requiring a driver at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at all times.
But in user-generated videos shared by Tesla on X, the company shows customers using FSD hands-free while engaged in other tasks. The DMV is arguing that Tesla’s license to sell vehicles in California should be suspended, with arguments ongoing through Friday at the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings in Oakland.
Under California state law, autonomous taxi services are regulated at the state level. Some city and county officials said on Friday that they were out of the loop regarding a potential Tesla service in the state.
Stephanie Moulton-Peters, a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, said in a phone interview that she had not heard from Tesla about its plans. She urged the company to be more transparent.
“I certainly expect they will tell us and I think it’s a good business practice to do that,” she said.
Moulton-Peters said she was undecided on robotaxis generally and wasn’t sure how Marin County, located north of San Francisco, would react to Tesla’s service.
“The news of change coming always has mixed results in the community,” she said.
Brian Colbert, another member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview that he’s open to the idea of Tesla’s service being a good thing but that he was disappointed in the lack of communication.
“They should have done a better job about informing the community about the launch,” he said.
Alphabet’s Waymo, which is far ahead of Tesla in the robotaxi market, obtained a number of permits from the DMV and CPUC before starting its driverless ride-hailing service in the state.
Waymo was granted a CPUC driverless deployment permit in 2023, allowing it to charge for rides in the state. The company has been seeking amendments to both its DMV and CPUC driverless deployment permits as it expands its service territory in the state.
— NBC’s David Ingram reported from San Francisco.
WATCH: Waymo testing self-driving cars with human drivers in New York and Philadelphia
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will serve as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence hiring blitz in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. In June, Zuckerberg announced a new organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers.
Zhao’s name was listed among other new hires in the June memo, but Zuckerberg said Friday that Zhao co-founded the lab and “has been our lead scientist from day one.” Zhao will work directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI who is acting as Meta’s chief AI officer.
“Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs including a new scaling paradigm and distinguished himself as a leader in the field,” Zuckerberg wrote in a social media post. “I’m looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision.”
In addition to co-creating ChatGPT, Zhao helped build OpenAI’s GPT-4, mini models, 4.1 and o3, and he previously led synthetic data at OpenAI, according to Zuckerberg’s June memo.
Meta Superintelligence Labs will be where employees work on foundation models such as the open-source Llama family of AI models, products and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects.
The social media company will invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into AI compute infrastructure, Zuckerberg said earlier this month.
“The next few years are going to be very exciting!” Zuckerberg wrote Friday.
WATCH: Meta announces massive ‘Prometheus’ & ‘Hyperion’ data center plans
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