Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to cut around 10 percent of jobs at Tesla, according to a report from Reuters. In an email to executives, he wrote that he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy. Including its subsidiaries, Tesla employed around 100,000 people as of the end of 2021, so any layoffs could be substantial.
Tesla has struggled with production more than some automakers, as most of its vehicles bound for Asian and European markets are manufactured in China at its Shanghai factory. Like other firms that manufacture in the nation, it has had difficulty restarting production following COVID-19 lockdowns.
On top of that, investor sentiment has been down due to inflation and the war in the Ukraine. However, the US jobs market is as good as it’s ever been, with unemployment holding steady at a 3.6 percent, the lowest level since the start of the pandemic. Demand for Tesla vehicles remains strong as well, according to Reuters.
Musk recently told SpaceX and Tesla employees that they had to return to the office full-time or leave the company. His uncompromising stance on remote work contrasts with other major tech companies that have allowed workers to request work-from-home permanently, including Salesforce, Slack and Facebook. Tech talent agency founder Jason Stomel told Reuters that Musk’s stance could be a “disguised layoff” because he “knows there’s a percentage of workers who are just not going to come back.”