Elon Musk Says Tesla Needs To Cut Staff By 10%, Pauses All Hiring Worldwide

Elon Musk, the Chief Executive of Tesla, said that the electric carmaker needed to cut staff by 10 per cent, according to an internal email sent to Tesla executives on Thursday.

The email was titled “Pause all hiring worldwide.” Reportedly, Musk also said that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.

Earlier this week, Musk asked Tesla employees to return to the office or leave the company. Musk sent an email to employees on Tuesday night. The email was titled “To be super clear.” He wrote, “Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”

Tesla employees

Tesla has about 100,000 full-time employees worldwide. Tesla’s production plants are also located in the US, Germany and China. Tesla’s service centres are located in Europe, Asia and North America. Tesla hires employees at these locations.

The current ultimatum to employees comes at a time when Covid-19 cases in California, the site of Tesla’s giant Fremont EV assembly plant, are increasing once again. Covid-19 cases have increased by 39 per cent from the average two weeks ago. San Francisco has one of the state’s highest Covid-19 case rates.

Elon Musk on Covid-19 pandemic

Musk has repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic. In March 2020, when Covid-19 was at its peak, Musk told employees that they had a greater chance of dying in a car crash than of Covid-19.

Elon Musk fired Tesla workers

In May 2020, Tesla fired many workers for protesting the unsafe return to work during the Covid-19 pandemic. Later on, many workers were infected with Covid-19. An unknown number of people also died from Covid-19.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is currently the world’s richest man, with around $250 billion in net worth. He is a co-founder of 8 companies – Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop, OpenAI, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.