Tesla Lays Off Nearly 15,000 Staff To Cut Cost, Increase Productivity

Following rumours in recent months, Tesla recently announced a series of lay-offs of "more than 10%" of its global workforce. This was detailed in a leaked internal email sent by its outspoken CEO, Elon Musk. Despite Musk's earlier claims with regards to output limitations in addition to changes in Cybertruck’s production shifts at its Texas Gigafactory.

These rumours are confirmed via said leaked email from Musk, which purportedly involved over 15,000 of the 140,000 total employees in a bid to streamline roles. Notably, in contrast to its prior explosive growth, Tesla's growth pace has decreased recently.

Although the precise effects remain unknown, major staff members laid off included execs Rohan Patel and Drew Baglino—who have subsequently been verified to have departed the company. Their exits were indicated by the disappearance of "Tesla-affiliated" badges on Twitter profiles.

X (Twitter) user @BrotherNature, who seems to be one of the laid off staff, tweeted that many went to work without checking their emails when the email arrived around five in the morning. He, too, bemoaned the injustice of Tesla securing employment agreements that forbid them from working for other automakers after leaving the company, even if they had the prospect of a long and luxurious career.

“I was in the middle of changing my thoughts about Tesla as a company, and thought man, it's really cool working here. Cool company to work for, nice benefits, not worth it though because it's actually not yearly layoffs, it's every 3-6 months where I'm at. Like is it that hard to just not constantly hire employees until you ACTUALLY need them?”, adds @BrotherNature further.

This news comes after Tesla delivered subpar quarterly results, missing projections and seeing a rare year-over-year sales dip that was primarily attributed to challenges in the Chinese market. Analysts predict that Tesla's quarterly profit will drop from US$0.85 per share during the same period last year to about US$0.50 per share.

Tesla's strategy shift to next-generation vehicles, such as the anticipated ‘affordable’ US$25,000 Model 2, which Reuters recently claimed had been cancelled in favour of Musk's purported robotaxi plan, further complicates the company's future.

These layoffs are in line with larger trends in the tech sector, where employers are continually assessing their workforces in light of the industry's consistently high profitability—a trend that is even visible in Malaysia's indigenous tech companies. 

Source: ELECTREK