I’ve experienced it at other places as well, just not the frequency or indirectness as Tesla.

During the first 24 hours of the Model 3 pre-order launch, Elon tweeted that we would support another 3-4 currencies than we had built and tested for. The team literally found out because of his tweet and had not planned for those currencies. That wasn’t the first time that sort of deal happened where we found out about a feature because of one of his tweets.

During my last job search I had an interview with Walmart, related to health software. I was flatly told that I might have a project canceled, then restarted on the original timeline. I declined after the interview.

They then shuttered the whole thing some months later: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/01/1248397756/walmart-close-heal...

Which is to say, these things are real warning signs about the company.

In the case of Musk's companies, here we are discussing a major failure and firings.

So this is a common tactic.

I have experienced management assigning people to multiple projects, vaguely acknowledging a time split. The moment the actual work starts people have to go 100% on all projects. This is normal.