Tesla job cuts include workers who joined the company weeks earlier

Tesla has outperformed established automakers the last several years, expanding production and deliveries at a blistering pace. But the mass firing now being carried out suggests this strong run of execution has come to an end.

We’ll find out roughly a week from now how many electric vehicles Tesla built and handed over to customers this quarter. There was little the company could do, of course, about Shanghai shutting down the city for weeks and costing the carmaker output from its most productive plant. Musk’s words and actions lately don’t inspire much confidence in how the company has coped.

First, the chief executive officer gave an interview to the Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley on May 31 (though the fan club only just aired the footage this week). Musk described the new factories opened recently near Berlin and in Austin, Texas, as “gigantic money furnaces” losing billions of dollars.

Days later, Reuters reported Musk had sent an email to Tesla executives saying he wanted to dismiss 10 per cent of employees. He then wrote in an all-staff email that cut would only apply to salaried workers. Then he tweeted Tesla’s overall headcount will increase over the next year.