Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2025

Musk wants to cut 10 percent of Tesla jobs: Report

Musk wants to cut 10 percent of Tesla jobs: Report

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a ‘super bad feeling’ about the economy, he said in an email to executives seen by Reuters news.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and needs to cut about 10 percent of jobs at the electric carmaker, he said in an email to executives seen by the Reuters news agency.

The message, sent on Thursday and titled “pause all hiring worldwide”, came two days after the billionaire told staff to return to the workplace or leave, and added to a growing chorus of warnings from business leaders about the risks of a recession.

Almost 100,000 people were employed at Tesla and its subsidiaries at the end of 2021, its annual Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing showed.

The company was not immediately available for comment.

Tesla shares fell nearly 5 percent in US pre-market trade on Friday and its Frankfurt-listed stock was down 3.6 percent after the Reuters report. US Nasdaq futures turned negative and were trading 1 percent lower.

Musk has warned in recent weeks about the risks of recession, but his email ordering a hiring freeze and staff cuts was the most direct and high-profile message of its kind from the head of a carmaker.

So far, demand for Tesla cars and other electric vehicles (EV) has remained strong and many traditional indicators of a downturn – including increasing dealer inventories and incentives in the United States – have not materialised.

But it has run into some regulatory woes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Friday it asked the EV company to respond to questions by June 20 after it received 758 reports of unexpected brake activation tied to the carmaker’s driver assistance system Autopilot.

In February, NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation into 416,000 2021-2022 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the US after the agency said it had received 354 complaints about the issue during the past nine months.

Tesla has also struggled to restart production at its Shanghai factory after 1COVID1-19 lockdowns forced costly outages.

“It is always better to introduce austerity measures in good times than in bad times. I see the statements as a forewarning and a precautionary measure,” said Hanover-based NordLB analyst Frank Schwope.

Earlier this week in an email to all employees, Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk demanded they return back to the office and said that working from home was no longer an option


Many carmakers achieved record profits in 2021, but the economic situation is now more uncertain, he noted.


Gloomy forecast


Musk’s gloomy outlook echoes recent comments from executives including JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs President John Waldron.

A “hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way”, Dimon said this week.

Inflation in the United States is hovering at 40-year highs and has caused a jump in the cost of living for Americans, while the Federal Reserve faces the difficult task of dampening demand enough to curb inflation while not causing a recession.

Musk, the world’s richest man according to Forbes, did not elaborate on the reasons for his “super bad feeling” about the economic outlook in the brief email seen by Reuters.

It was also not immediately clear what implication, if any, Musk’s view would have for his $44bn bid for Twitter. US antitrust regulators cleared the deal on Friday, sending Twitter shares up nearly 2 percent in pre-market trading.

Several analysts have cut price targets for Tesla recently, forecasting lost output at its Shanghai plant, a hub supplying EVs to China and for export.

China accounted for just more than a third of Tesla’s global deliveries in 2021, according to company disclosures and data released on sales there. On Thursday, Daiwa Capital Markets estimated Tesla had about 32,000 orders awaiting delivery in China, compared with 600,000 vehicles for BYD, its larger EV rival in that market.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said in a tweet it appeared Musk and Tesla were “trying to be ahead of a slower delivery ramp this year and preserve margins ahead of an economic slowdown.”


‘Pause all hiring’


Before Musk’s warning, Tesla had about 5,000 job postings on LinkedIn from sales in Tokyo and engineers at its new Berlin gigafactory to deep learning scientists in Palo Alto. It had scheduled an online hiring event for Shanghai on June 9 on its WeChat channel.

Tesla vehicles in Shanghai, China, where Tesla has struggled to restart production at its Shanghai factory after 1COVID1-19 lockdowns forced costly outages


Musk’s demand that staff return to the office has already faced pushback in Germany. And his plan to cut jobs would face resistance in the Netherlands, where Tesla has its European headquarters, a union leader said.

“You can’t just fire Dutch workers,” said FNV union spokesperson Hans Walthie, adding Tesla would have to negotiate with a labor union on terms for any departures.

In a Tuesday email, Musk had said Tesla employees were required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week, closing the door on any remote work. “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned,” he said.

Musk has referred to the risk of a recession repeatedly in recent comments.

Remotely addressing a conference in mid-May in Miami Beach, he said, “I think we are probably in a recession and that recession will get worse.”

Other companies have cut jobs or are slowing or pausing hiring amid weakening demand.

Last month, Netflix said it had laid off about 150 people, mostly in the United States, and Peloton said in February it would cut 2,800 jobs. Meta Platforms, Uber and other technology companies have slowed hiring.

In June 2018, Musk said Tesla would cut 9 percent of its workforce as the then-loss-making company struggled to ramp up output of Model 3 electric sedans, although data in its SEC filings showed reductions were more than offset by hiring by year-end.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Trump Backs Putin’s Land-for-Peace Proposal Amid Kyiv’s Rejection
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
United States Sells Luxury Yacht Amadea, Valued at Approximately $325 Million, in First Sale of a Seized Russian Yacht Since the Invasion of Ukraine
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
Australia to Recognize the State of Palestine at UN Assembly
The Collapse of the Programmer Dream: AI Experts Now the Real High-Earners
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
Germany Enters Fiscal Crisis as Cabinet Approves €174 Billion in New Debt
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
×