Automobile giant, Tesla is set to lay off at least 10% of its global electric vehicle workforce, Africa Today News, New York has learnt.
In a memo, first reported by news website Electrek, billionaire owner Elon Musk told staff there was nothing he hated more, “but it must be done”.
The world’s largest vehicle maker by market value had 140,473 employees globally as of December, according to its latest annual report.
Tesla is yet to react to the report.
“We have done a thorough review of the organisation and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally,” said the email from Mr Musk.
Read Also: Self-Driving Car Project: Apple Trims Workforce Thereafter
“There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”
A Tesla employee who had been told he was being let go told the BBC he had subsequently been locked out of his emails, as had all other staff being laid off.
One of the executive team, Andrew “Drew” Baglino, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday he had made the “difficult decision” to leave the firm after 18 years.
Mr Baglino had served as senior vice president of Tesla’s powertrain and energy engineering team since 2019, according to Tesla’s website.
Another executive heading up public policy and business development, Rohan Patel, is set to leave too.
He personally thanked Mr Musk for giving him the chance and “empowering” him to lead big initiatives at the firm.
He also said that the “never-say-die attitude and scrappiness” of the wider Tesla team is what he thought made it a special place to work.
Their departures “signal that Tesla’s major growth phase is meeting serious headwinds,” said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors, deeming it “the larger negative signal today” than the announcement of job cuts.
However, analysts from Gartner and Hargreaves Lansdown said the cuts were a sign of cost pressures as the carmaker invested in new models and artificial intelligence.