The Tesla bloodbath continues. The weekend brought another mass layoff, the company is trying to make as much money as possible

Employees are beginning to feel the uncertainty that the current situation exposes them to, because apparently no one is certain of anything. Tesla is apparently frantically trying to fix its finances, from both conceivable angles.

It’s been going on for four weeks straight and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to end. More and more Tesla employees are receiving e-mails informing them of the termination of their employment with the company. So far, the last round took place over the weekend, as people from Electrek inform with reference to a number of close employees of the company. And it is no wonder that those who are still surviving in their positions are nervous about what is to come, following the developments so far.

The latest round of layoffs hit the software development, engineering and service development departments. Sundays seem to be the critical moment, as evidenced by Cheryl Cai, a user interface development specialist who moved to Tesla from Apple. She, too, was worried about keeping her position after several of her closest colleagues had to pack up in recent weeks. It eventually came to her too, as she states in the LinkedIn post mentioned below. “I became another statistic in the next round of mass layoffs,” she says today, adding that she received the dreaded email on Sunday and it was simply over.

“Surviving” employees quoted by Business Insider talk about their fears that it will happen to them next time, as the layoffs don’t seem to have a direct link to previous job performance or anything like that. There are simply too many people for what Tesla needs and expects now, so they are laying off across the board. After all, Elon Musk himself stated that the cuts were necessitated by the “duplication of roles and job functions”, which is a condition that usually occurs during rapid growth of companies. And as long as things are going well, no one cares about it too much. Apparently it’s not working now.

“I’m still waiting for Elon to send another email and say the layoffs are over,” one employee told Business Insider on condition of anonymity. “We need some way of closing the whole thing or a clear sign that we can stop worrying about jobs,” he added. This is understandable, uncertainty is devastating in these matters, but Tesla’s approach gives the impression that it is using uncertainty to increase the work performance of existing personnel. However, it does not appear to have a direct impact on whether or not the positions of existing workers are retained.

But this is far from the only thing happening at Tesla. Again, according to Electrek, everything gives the impression that Musk is once again taking a more significant role in the management of the company, when Tom Zhu, the recently promoted global number two of the company who answers only to Musk and has responsibility for part of Tesla’s American activities, has once again “transferred” to the head of the company’s Chinese division. A number of other high-ranking people were then dismissed, as we mentioned recently.

In addition, Tesla is not only concerned with savings, it also wants to earn more. Newly, for a fee, it will offer, among other things, the unlocking of the hitherto hidden battery capacity of some cars. Straight from Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1786586974108909815 stated that, for example, a base variant of the Model Y could get 40 to 60 miles (64 to 97 km) of additional range this way, depending on the battery available to it. Tesla wants to charge $1,500 to $2,000 (about CZK 35,000 to 47,000) for it and is currently “working on regulatory approvals to make it possible.” Musk doesn’t even try to hide the reasons: “We have to pay the bills somehow,” he said in response to questions from some customers.

As we have already mentioned more than once, although the situation at Tesla seems dramatic, it is not clear whether it is a reaction to a very bad current situation, a preventive measure in anticipation of such a situation, or just using the situation to take steps that will ensure better management of the company at the moment of expecting the exact opposite. Only time will bring a clear answer in this regard.

Being a Tesla employee today is not an easy task, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Photo: Tesla

Sources: Electrek first and second time, Business Insider, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1786586974108909815Cheryl Cai@LinkedIn

Peter Miller

All articles on Autoforum.cz are comments expressing the editor’s or author’s opinion. Except for articles marked as advertising, the content is not sponsored or similarly influenced by third parties.