Tesla is cutting about 10% of salaried workers, Elon Musk told employees on Friday. The Tesla CEO told fellow executives earlier that he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and the company would need to lay off employees, Reuters reported.
"Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10% as we have become overstaffed in many areas," Musk wrote in a note to employees, which was obtained by CNBC. "Note this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar. Hourly headcount will increase."
Almost 100,000 people work at Tesla and its subsidiaries, according to an SEC filing late last year. That means 10,000 employees could lose their jobs.
Dozens of tech companies have announced layoffs in recent weeks, but Tesla is one of the biggest — and one of the only — EV companies to make such a move. Musk said at a recent conference that the U.S. is in a recession and blamed President Biden and his administration for the issue. "I've been through a few [recessions]," he said. "And what tends to happen is if you have a boom that goes on too long, you get a misallocation of capital. It starts raining money on fools, basically."
Musk is not the only person worried about the U.S. economy. JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon warned of an economic "hurricane" in the near future after the Federal Reserve indicated it may reverse its emergency bond-buying programs, and as the war in Ukraine drags on.
Tesla and SpaceX are calling employees back to the office for 40 hours a week. A Microsoft recruiter already put out a notice to Tesla workers that there's room for them at the company (although the post has since been deleted).
Tesla shares dropped 8.5% on the news that Musk planned a hiring freeze.
The company didn't return Protocol's request for comment.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE