By Frank Kamuntu
Tesla’s brutal round of layoffs entered its fourth week, with more employees posting on LinkedIn and elsewhere about receiving notice that their time at the company has come to an end.
The most recent layoffs, which were first reported by Electrek and Business Insider, appear to be hitting different segments of the company, including software, services, and engineering. Employees said they received layoff notices over the weekend and on Monday.
It’s unclear how many employees have been affected. Business Insider reported at least seven employees posted about being laid off on Sunday.
The layoffs first started last month, when Tesla began laying off what was said to be at the time 10 percent of the company’s global workforce of 140,000 people. The layoffs included Tesla’s head of EV charging, Rebecca Tinucci, as well as her entire 500-person team. Tesla’s head of the new vehicles program, Daniel Ho, was also let go.
On X, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company needed to be reorganized every five years. And in an email to employees, he said the company needed to be “absolutely hard core” about the cuts and that staffers working under executives who “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” would be out of a job.
According to Bloomberg, Musk privately expressed a desire to lay off at least 20 percent of the company because its quarterly vehicle deliveries fell by that much.
Tesla is going through one of its toughest financial situations in years, with sales dropping and profits down 55 percent year over year. The company is experiencing increased competition, both in the US and in China, while also dealing with waning demand for EVs globally.
And Musk has been downplaying Tesla’s vehicle business in an effort to position the company as a leader in autonomous vehicles, promising to unveil a fully autonomous robotaxi later this year.
