Chief Executive Elon Musk plans to cut at least 10% of the company’s workforce, a plan that remains unfinished more than a month ago. This means anxious employees wake up every day and check their messages, wondering if they still have a job. The rolling layoffs are likely to last until at least June, said people familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the layoffs.
“It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to go to work every day and not be sure if you’re going to be able to pay your bills or feed your family,” said Michael Minick, a former Tesla sales representative who was fired in April. “It would be a relief to know they can breathe and focus on their work without the gray cloud of uncertainty hanging over them.”
Tesla’s workforce has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past few years—the Silicon Valley upstart with a wild vision for clean energy is now concentrated in Texas and focused on other ventures, including artificial intelligence and robot.
Some people who still work at the company say Musk’s prioritization of robotaxis over $25,000 electric vehicles has eroded morale. They also say a mission that inspired legions of Musk followers has become disorganized.
Musk has yet to give “completely clear” instructions to employees that the layoffs are over, leading to colleagues telling each other dark jokes about anxiety and sleeplessness.One current employee described the atmosphere as similar to squid gameThe hit TV series follows characters facing financial hardship as they engage in a deadly child race to survive.
The wave of layoffs has spread to thousands of departments, including sales, human resources and almost the entire Supercharger unit, and is expected to hit Tesla’s important divisions, which had more than 140,000 employees at the beginning of the year. Bloomberg reported last month that Musk had pushed for 20% of layoffs.
In the Supercharger division, some employees discovered that North American Charging Director Max de Zegher had been fired because his Microsoft Teams icon suddenly turned gray, indicating that he no longer worked for the company.
Over the next few days, many on the team said goodbye, joked and mentioned the Titanic, said fired Tesla construction manager Joel Musial. “We just missed the string quartet!” Music wrote on LinkedIn.
There’s a sense of humor in the Supercharging team, which has built more than 6,200 charging stations and 57,000 connectors around the world and is opening the network to other automakers, which should increase usage.
Musk said Tesla still plans to grow the network, albeit at a slower pace. He rehired Dezeiger but did not say how many others would be asked to return.
It’s unclear whether the company has enough staff to keep Supercharger stations operational after multiple technical teams were laid off. The 80-person team responsible for maintaining and repairing Supercharger stations in Northern California has been laid off by 22 people, leaving geographic and professional gaps, a former California employee said.
The person, who was laid off two weeks after the layoffs were initially announced, said the district now has just one employee covering the more than 200 miles between Santa Rosa and Eureka.
Another person in a similar position in Canada predicted there would be chaos after he and dozens of others were laid off, as many Tesla charging stations are hours apart and the amount of work required once more of the company’s customers are connected. It will only increase.
He said he worked for two weeks in a state of distraught and uncertainty after the layoffs were initially announced, with an increasing workload and disappearing colleagues making it difficult to concentrate. On his last day at Tesla, he said he was dispatching technicians and attending daily meetings when he found himself without access to his company laptop at 10:45 p.m. .
One former sales employee said the layoffs come amid sluggish demand across the electric vehicle industry, putting tremendous pressure on employees who are already grappling with changes in the company’s culture. This person said he has seen tremendous turnover in nearly a decade at Tesla, with each departure depriving the automaker of important institutional knowledge.
Rich Otto, who resigned as Tesla’s head of product launch this month, said in a LinkedIn post: “Great companies are made up of great people and great products, and the latter is only as good as their employees. This is only possible if the company thrives. “The recent layoffs have shaken the company and its morale, throwing that harmony out of balance and making it difficult to see the long-term picture. “
