Bakery Owner Calls out Tesla for Canceling Pie Order Worth Thousands; Here's Elon Musk's Response

Elon Musk has been in the news for several controversial decisions including mass layoffs at Twitter as well as technical glitches that continue to haunt Tesla by causing accidents. But the carmaker's most recent controversy involves a dispute with a bakery regarding its order for Valentine's Day. Voahangy Rasetarinera, the owner of The Giving Pies in San Jose, California said that her bakery received a last-minute order for 2,000 pies from the Musk-owned company Tesla on Valentine's Day, which was a $6,000 opportunity for the small business. However, she was soon dejected to know that the order had been canceled, and decided to share her experience on social media. 

According to Voahangy Rasetarinera, the company placed an order for 2,000 mini pies, and a couple of days later, the order was doubled by a Tesla employee. Rasetarinera says that she had already bought all the ingredients and even turned down other orders to fulfill this order which was a pretty big one, considering the scale of the business. Reportedly, on Thursday (Feb 15) evening, a Tesla representative named Laura got in touch with Rasetarinera and apologized for the delayed payment. She later increased the order to 4,000 pies and assured the business owner that the money was not an issue. 

"Sorry to bother you again, but I’m a small business. I don’t have the luxury of infinite resources so I need to be paid so I can secure my staff. I received a message back that was like ‘Hey, so sorry, I don’t think we’re going to need this order anymore,'" Rasetarinera responded to Tesla.

Rasetarinera says that she and her team worked very hard and even overtime to pull off the mega order. However, the company failed to respond to her several invoices. Instead, she soon got the news that the order had been canceled and that the company did not need the order anymore. Following this, Rasetarinera took to Facebook and wrote in a post that the cancellation left her "reeling, realizing the extent of the impact on my small business."

"I had invested time, resources, and effort based on assurances from Tesla, only to be left high and dry," she wrote. She also added that the last-minute cancellation hurt her business to a large extent. "I’m a small business. I don’t have the luxury of infinite resources, so I need to be paid so I can secure my staff," she said. Rasetarinera said that after she made the incident public, Tesla first offered to buy the pies and tour their factory, but her payment was still pending. The company later placed another order, as per Yahoo!News.

However, Elon Musk himself took to X (formerly Twitter) to talk about the issue. "Just hearing about this. Will make things good with the bakery," he wrote. "People should always be able to count on Tesla trying its best," he added. One user took to the thread to write, "Tesla needs to pay this bakery just as Tesla 'steals' $250 pre-order for their cars if you cancel."

Rasetarinera said that she expects large corporations to remember there are people behind contracts. "I want them to always remember everybody's action has an impact and it can be good or can be bad. And when it's Tesla it's better to show the good," she added. Things are looking up for The Giving Pies as customers are pouring in to show their support by buying their baked goods. "It’s not even 11 a.m. and we are out of pies," Rasetarinera said. San Jose resident Vickie Ngui told ABC 7, "I  felt bad that she lost a lot of money. So I just want her to know that we as a community will help her out where we can."