Elon Musk wants Tesla staff to be ‘absolutely hard core’ about layoffs

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla  (TSLA) , has reportedly planned another round of job cuts at his billion-dollar automotive company. Hundreds of Tesla employees are set to get the boot just two weeks after the company laid off roughly 14,000 staff members.

In an email to staff announcing the latest round of job cuts, Musk reportedly told employees that they need to be “absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction,” according to a recent report from The Information.

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The email reveals that in this round of layoffs, Tesla’s senior director of electric vehicle charging, Rebecca Tinucci, is exiting the company along with her team of roughly 500. Tinucci and her team were also responsible for the company’s Supercharging initiative, which helped to develop fast-charging stations that can charge Tesla vehicles in 15 minutes, adding 200 miles of range. The email from Musk also clarifies that Tesla is not stopping its development of new Superchargers.

Daniel Ho, Tesla’s director of new vehicles programs and new product initiatives, is also leaving the company, along with his team. Most of Tesla’s public policy team are also being laid off.

Musk also stated in the email that staff members of executives who “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” will also be laid off.

Tesla’s recent cut to its Supercharging team comes after it began rolling out its Supercharger network to more non-Tesla EV owners across the nation in February. In the company’s first-quarter earnings report for 2024, it revealed that its fleet of Supercharger stations increased by 26% year-over-year, and its Supercharger connectors increased by 27%.

The report also revealed that Tesla faced some financial headwinds during the quarter. The company reported a 9% year-over-year decline in total revenues. Its total automotive revenues also decreased by 13% year-over-year.

Tesla has been on a roll with job reductions. On April 14, when Musk laid off 10% of his Tesla staff, he blamed the reorganization on “rapid growth,” which has led to a “duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas,” according to a memo sent to employees.

A few days later, Musk even apologized to laid off employees for low severance packages and vowed to resolve the issue.

“As we reorganize Tesla it has come to my attention that some severance packages are incorrectly low,” Musk wrote in the email on April 17, which was seen by CNBC. “My apologies for this mistake. It is being corrected immediately.”

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