Musk Calls Tesla Factories 'Money Furnaces' As They Continue Facing Difficulties

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

In an interview with Tesla owners of Silicon Valley, Elon Musk said, “Both Berlin and Austin factories are gigantic money furnaces right now,” referring to Tesla’s new factories in Germany and Texas, USA.

These comments from Musk come in light of various speedbreakers faced by Tesla recently. In a leaked email to his staff members, Musk talked about how the current quarter has been hard, saying, “This has been a very tough quarter, primarily due to supply chain and production challenges in China, so we need to rally hard to recover!”

Musk, in his message, referred to production difficulties in China due to a lockdown owing to COVID-19. The Shanghai factory had to completely suspend operations from 28 March this year for a few weeks, and then operate under a “closed loop” system to be able to continue running through the lockdown.

Production at the factory bounced back to the extent that in May, it was able to create more than triple its output in April, at 33,544 cars, reports from Bloomberg said.

“Pause All Hiring Worldwide”

Musk had also recently mentioned in another email seen by Reuters, that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and that Tesla needed to reduce its staff by 10 percent.

Reports have also suggested that several people from Tesla have been laid off, and two of these people have come forward with a lawsuit against the company, alleging that they had been laid off without the 60-day notice period mandated by federal law.

Musk has been facing issues with Tesla for a while. In 2021, he tweeted, "2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn't matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship."

(With inputs from Bloomberg, Reuters)