Tesla is implementing job cuts globally, including in China, its second-largest market after the US. CEO Elon Musk announced in an internal memo that over 10% of the workforce will be laid off due to declining sales and increased competition in the electric vehicle market. Sources indicate that the cuts are affecting various teams, including sales in China, with more than 10% of the sales team reportedly losing their jobs.
The world's largest auto-maker by market value had 140,473 employees globally as of December 2023, according to its latest annual report. The reported cuts will affect about 15,000 workers.
Tesla shares rose 2.7% in premarket trading. They have slumped more than 25% so far this year.
Tesla has started layoffs, following through on a plan by Chief Executive Elon Musk, who said he had "a super bad feeling about the economy" in June. He also has said Tesla's new factories in Austin, Texas, and Berlin are "gigantic money furnaces" which are losing billions of dollars.
Informed sources confirmed that Tesla started another wave of layoffs yesterday that included many hourly employees in its sales and delivery teams across North America, reports the auto-tech website Electrek.
Surprisingly, the layoffs come amid Tesla's being in the middle of a difficult end-of-quarter delivery wave, which Musk himself warned employees about, saying that it will be "nutty". Earlier this month, the website reported on Musk telling Tesla executives in an email that they need to cut 10 per cent of the workforce and pause hiring due to having a "super bad feeling" about the economy.
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