Musk backtracks on job cuts, says Tesla salaried staff to be ‘fairly flat’

(Reuters) -Tesla Inc Chief Government Elon Musk stated on Saturday that the electrical automobile maker’s complete headcount will enhance over the following 12 months, however the variety of salaried employees ought to be little modified, backtracking from an e mail simply two days in the past saying that job cuts of 10% have been wanted.

“Whole headcount will enhance, however salaried ought to be pretty flat,” Musk tweeted https://twitter.com/elonmusk/standing/1533176789022957568 in a reply to an unverified Twitter account that made a “prediction” that Tesla’s headcount would enhance over the following 12 months.

Musk in an e mail to Tesla executives on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters on Friday, stated he has a “tremendous unhealthy feeling” in regards to the U.S. financial system and wanted to chop jobs by about 10%.

In one other e mail to workers on Friday, Musk stated Tesla would scale back salaried headcount by 10%, because it has change into “overstaffed in lots of areas.” However “hourly headcount will enhance,” he stated.

Tesla’s shares sank 9.2% on Friday on the information.

In response to a Tesla U.S. regulatory submitting, the corporate and its subsidiaries had virtually 100,000 workers on the finish of 2021.

Forward of his emails on staffing ranges, Musk on Wednesday in an e mail to Tesla workers issued an ultimatum to return to the workplace for at least 40 hours every week. Failure to take action can be taken as a resignation, he wrote.

Musk on Thursday stated Tesla’s AI day has been pushed to Sept. 30, and stated a prototype of Optimus, a humanoid robotic that could be a firm precedence, could possibly be prepared by then and could possibly be launched subsequent yr

(Reporting by Rachna Dhanrajani in Bengaluru; Modifying by Leslie Adler)