Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, in an email accessed by Reuters on Friday, 3 June, said that he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy, warning of a potential recession, and said that he wants to lay off 10 percent of jobs at the electric carmaker.
The development comes days after Musk warned all employees in an email to resume work from office immediately or resign from the company.
As per the email, Musk said, "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," adding, "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."
The stern warning for staff return to the office has already faced pushback in Germany.
Pause All Hiring Worldwide: Musk
Before Musk's warning of mass lay-offs, which came in an email titled 'Pause all hiring worldwide,' Tesla had about 5,000 job postings on LinkedIn, including from sales in Tokyo, engineers in its new Berlin gigafactory and deep learning scientists in Palo Alto.
According to the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Tesla employed around 1,00,000 people in the company and its subsidiaries at the end of 2021, reported Reuters.
In spite of growing concerns of a recession in the United States, there has been a strong demand for Tesla and other electric vehicles.
However, Tesla has struggled to restart production at its Shanghai factory after nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns forced costly outages at the plant.
(With inputs from Reuters.)
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