🚗 Even a Silicon Valley giant couldn't escape Japan's dark sales culture. Employees at Tesla's Japan division were paying order fees out of their own pockets to meet sales quotas, a practice the Japanese call "Jibaku Eigyo" (self-destructive sales). While Tesla's global sales plummeted, Japan's numbers looked too good to be true. Here's the story behind the numbers.

What Happened at Tesla Japan

On February 25, 2026, the Japanese business publication Diamond Online broke the story: some employees at Tesla's Japan operation had been engaging in "Jibaku Eigyo," literally "self-destructive sales," to meet their targets. Shukan Bunshun and Money Post Web followed with their own reporting.

Here's how it worked. Tesla Japan has a unique ordering system where customers pay a non-refundable "order fee" of about $100 (15,000 yen) via credit card before deciding whether to actually purchase a vehicle. This fee is separate from the car's price and is not returned even if the order is canceled.

According to the report, some Tesla Japan employees were using their own credit cards to pay these order fees on behalf of real customers or even fictitious ones, essentially inflating order numbers at their own expense. The practice was internally nicknamed "Jibaku Orders."

The structure behind it mattered: staff incentives were tied to order counts rather than actual deliveries, and deliveries were handled by an entirely separate team.

At an internal meeting in late December 2025, Tesla Japan chief Richi Hashimoto acknowledged that orders with no purchase intent had been placed by sales staff. He said his own hard-edged communication may have added stress that contributed to the behavior, and announced he would give up his incentive pay for the second half of 2025. Other executives forfeited part of their compensation too. Hashimoto had taken the top job in September 2024; Tesla was his first automotive employer.

Tesla Japan has separate labor troubles. In April 2024, Tesla's US headquarters ordered a global workforce cut of more than 10%, and the Japan unit began pushing 23% of its employees to resign, without ever opening a voluntary retirement program. One dismissed worker sued in Tokyo District Court that July; by November the judge signaled that the dismissal was very likely illegal. With settlement talks stalled, Tesla abruptly declared at a December 5, 2025 hearing that it accepted the claim in full, a procedural surrender carrying the same force as a final judgment. The company then ordered the employee to a distant office, withdrew that order after the plaintiff called it retaliation, and reinstated him at his original workplace. His lawyer, Ryosuke Tsuboi, told reporters that being a foreign company does not make dismissals easier to justify in Japan.

Why Japan Looked Great While the World Struggled

Tesla's global picture in 2025 was bleak. Worldwide deliveries fell 8.6% to approximately 1.64 million vehicles. China's BYD surged past Tesla for the first time with about 2.26 million EVs sold. The reasons behind Tesla's global decline include CEO Elon Musk's controversial political activities heading the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the expiration of the $7,500 U.S. EV tax credit, and fierce competition from Chinese manufacturers.

In Europe, Tesla's sales dropped 28% to about 235,000 units. In Canada, they fell more than 60% over the full year. Anti-Musk boycotts spread across multiple continents throughout 2025.

But Japan was a different story. Estimates derived from Japan Automobile Importers Association data put 2025 sales at about 10,600 vehicles, up roughly 90% year on year and a record. Tesla expanded from its online-only model by opening showrooms in shopping malls and hiring sales staff hard, helped by national and local subsidies that can reach ¥2.27 million per car.

Now we know that at least part of these impressive numbers were artificially inflated by employees paying out of their own pockets.

What Is "Jibaku Eigyo"?

"Jibaku Eigyo" (自爆営業) is a uniquely Japanese workplace phenomenon where employees spend their own money to purchase company products or services in order to meet sales quotas. The term literally means "self-destructive sales" or "suicide bombing sales", a vivid metaphor for the self-sacrificial nature of the act.

This practice has deep roots across many Japanese industries. Some well-known examples include post office workers buying thousands of New Year's greeting cards (nengajo) out of pocket to meet quotas, convenience store clerks forced to purchase unsold Christmas cakes, agricultural cooperative workers paying insurance premiums to hit targets, and car dealership employees covering vehicle discount costs from their own salary.

The underlying driver is Japan's intense "norma culture", where sales targets are treated not merely as business objectives but as measures of loyalty and dedication to the team. Failing to hit numbers doesn't just affect bonuses; it can damage one's reputation, career trajectory, and standing among colleagues. Under this silent pressure, employees "voluntarily" resort to self-funding sales rather than face social consequences.

In the most tragic cases, employees have taken their own lives after being crushed by mounting debt from self-funded quota obligations. A financial sector worker who borrowed from family members to cover mandatory insurance sales quotas eventually died by suicide.

Why Does This Happen Even at a Foreign Company?

Tesla is a Silicon Valley tech company with a reputation for disrupting traditional business models. So why did Jibaku Eigyo take root there?

Several factors likely contributed. When Tesla Japan shifted from online-only sales to physical retail in 2025, it rapidly hired sales staff, many of whom likely came from Japan's conventional automotive and retail sectors, where quota culture is deeply ingrained.

Tesla's relatively low order fee of $100 also lowered the psychological barrier. Unlike buying an entire car, paying a small order fee on a customer's behalf may have seemed like a minor act, an easy shortcut to boosting numbers.

Furthermore, with global sales under pressure, performance expectations on the Japan team may have been amplified. Even within a foreign company's framework, local operations inevitably absorb elements of the host country's work culture.

Japan's Government Calls It Power Harassment

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has been moving to formally address this issue. A draft amendment adding Jibaku Eigyo to the power harassment prevention guidelines was presented to the Labour Policy Council on November 17, 2025, and takes effect on October 1, 2026. The practice qualifies as "power harassment" (pawahara) when it meets three criteria: the behavior stems from a superior position, exceeds what is necessary for business, and harms the worker's employment environment. Companies will then be required to implement prevention measures.

Previously, there was no law directly prohibiting Jibaku Eigyo, making it difficult for workers to seek legal recourse. The new designation under Japan's Comprehensive Labour Policy Promotion Act represents a significant shift from decades of treating the practice as an unfortunate but tolerated custom.

How Does This Compare to the West?

In Western countries, the concept of Jibaku Eigyo is largely unheard of. In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prohibits requiring employees to bear work-related expenses that push their effective earnings below minimum wage. EU member states offer even stronger worker protections, with works council systems in France and Germany that monitor unreasonable quota setting.

Western sales cultures typically operate on commission-based compensation, creating a different incentive structure. When your pay directly reflects your sales, there's no reason to spend your own money to artificially boost numbers, you'd be paying yourself.

That said, excessive quota pressure exists everywhere. The Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal of 2016 showed how American employees under intense sales pressure opened millions of unauthorized accounts. The specific form of misconduct differs, but the underlying problem of toxic sales targets driving unethical behavior is a global issue.

Japan's regulatory response is a step, but the challenge extends beyond what laws can reach. The silent pressure of "produce numbers or be judged," the fear of being seen as a burden to colleagues: these operate in the spaces between legal paragraphs, and a Silicon Valley disruptor turned out to have no immunity to them.

How much pressure do sales quotas create in your country? Have you ever seen employees spend their own money to make their numbers look better?

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