Tesla may be gearing up for a round of layoffs, according to a recent Bloomberg report.
According to those acquainted with the situation, U.S. supervisors recently had to evaluate their deputies’ roles visually. Some of the people said that after canceling some employees’ biannual performance reviews, Tesla sent out a single-line query for each job.
The Austin-based electric vehicles maker has a history of layoffs, and its CEO, Elon Musk, is known for initiating them not just at Tesla but also at other companies. In fact, in late 2022, Musk reduced the majority of X’s (formerly known as Twitter) staff to improve efficiency and save costs.
Moreover, one former employee even expressed, “Coming from an ex-Tesla semi tech that jumped to Rivian for a 16% pay increase, I wholly agree that Tesla is not staying competitive in its compensation plans.”
Although Tesla has used hiring inefficiencies to justify layoffs in the past, the EV maker hired 29,000 new employees in 2022, and that number increased by roughly 12,000 in 2023. Reports also indicate that Tesla’s morale is currently low, with salaried staff members not receiving their regular stock incentives after yearly reviews. Additionally, the company later postponed the promised compensation review.
To maintain its price reductions and keep up the demand for its EVs, Tesla is constantly trying to reduce costs. The company had previously laid off thousands of workers in the first quarter of 2023, a trend that was also witnessed at Google and Amazon.
