(Archyde.com) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “very bad feeling” about the economy and wants to cut about 10% of the jobs at the company electric vehicleshe wrote in an email sent by company executives on Thursday and seen by Archyde.com.
The message occurs two days after the richest man in the world warned Tesla workers that they had to go back to the offices or quit the company.
Tesla employed about 100,000 people at the company and its subsidiaries as of the end of 2021, according to its annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The company was not immediately available for comment.
Musk’s scathing warning about a possible recession and its effect on automakers is the most direct and egregious forecast of its kind in this industry.
Concerns about a recession
Although concerns about the risk of a recession are growing, demand for Tesla cars and other electric vehicles has remained strong. In addition, many of the traditional indicators of a recession — such as rising dealer inventories in the United States — have not materialized.
However, Tesla has faced problems restarting production at its Shanghai factory after Covid-19 lockdowns forced the plant to halt operations at great cost.
Musk’s dovish outlook echoes recent comments from executives including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs Chairman John Waldron.
“That hurricane is out there, coming at us,” Dimon said this week.
Inflation in the United States stands at 40-year high and has caused an increase in the cost of living for Americans. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve faces the difficult task of curbing demand enough to control inflation but without triggering a recession.
Musk: “All hiring is suspended”
Before Musk’s warning, which came in an email titled “all hiring globally suspended,” Tesla had some 5,000 job postings on LinkedIn, from sales in Tokyo and engineers at its new Berlin factory to scientists at deep learning in Palo Alto.
Musk’s demand that staff go back to the office it already faces rejection in Germany.
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in an email on Tuesday. “If they don’t show up, we’ll assume they quit.”
Musk also got into a Twitter feud Thursday with Australian tech billionaire and Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, who ridiculed the Tesla CEO’s order in a series of tweets as “like something out of the 1950s.”
Musk tweeted, “Recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function,” in response to a message from Farquhar encouraging Tesla employees to look at his remote job postings.