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Tesla sends out another wave of layoff notices as employees enter 4th week of job cuts

A composite image of Elon Musk and the parking lot of the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk told staff Tesla would cut more than 10% of its workforce. Nathan Howard and Justin Sullivan via Getty Images
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Elon Musk continues to cut deeper at Tesla. The company sent out another round of layoff notices on Sunday night.

The latest round of cuts mean that employees at the company are entering their fourth straight week of layoff notices. Four workers told Business Insider that their managers notified them of additional cuts to their teams on Monday morning. Additionally, several Tesla workers took to LinkedIn to say they'd received layoff notices over the weekend.

"After watching my team gradually slimmed down week after week since mid-April, I received the dreaded 'Hello Employee' email this Sunday afternoon," one Tesla worker wrote on LinkedIn.

Another worker shared a screenshot of her layoff email on LinkedIn that showed her last day of work would be May 5.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

Workers at the carmaker previously told Business Insider the continual waves of layoff notices had left them on edge, with many looking for opportunities outside of the company.

"I keep waiting for Elon to send another email and tell us they're finally done firing people," one current Tesla worker, who requested anonymity to speak on the conditions of their employment, said. "We need some level of closure or a sign that we can stop worrying about losing our jobs."

Since Elon Musk first announced that Tesla was slashing more than 10% of its workforce on April 14, workers have continued to get layoff notices in waves. At the time, Musk said the cuts were due to a "duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas," according to a screenshot of the April email that was viewed by BI. Within hours of that memo, the company began notifying impacted employees that they'd been terminated. But, some employees did not learn there role had been eliminated until they attempted to badge into a Tesla facility.

In the weeks that followed Tesla workforce reductions have hit different teams — from recruiters and the marketing team to Tesla's Supercharging team. Some Tesla recruiters were laid off, BI first reported.

Musk reportedly told executives last week that the company had to become "absolutely hard core about headcount."

Musk has fewer Tesla executives now too

At least six executives have departed the company over the past month.

The same day Tesla announced its initial round of cuts two executives resigned from the company. SVP of powertrain and electrical engineering Drew Baglino and VP of public policy and business development Rohan Patel said on X they had left Tesla as of Sunday. At the time, Patel told TechCrunch he'd decided to leave the due to big "overall changes" at Tesla. The reshuffling left Musk overseeing 35 direct reports, according to a report from The Information.

Ahead of the cuts, Tesla employed over 140,000 workers globally. Notices that Tesla has filed via the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act show that the company has already eliminated thousands of workers at its sites in California and Texas.

The recent round of layoffs comes at a time when Tesla is facing slower demand for its electric cars. The carmaker reported lower-than-expected delivery numbers in April.

Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Reach out to the reporter via a non-work email and device at gkay@jkmperu.com or via Signal at 248-894-6012

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Grace Kay
Grace Kay was a Correspondent on Business Insider’s enterprise desk, where she covered the inner workings of Tesla, Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, and the broader robotics and electric vehicle industries.Her stories have been cited by multiple publications, including Reuters, Bloomberg, and CNBC. Before joining Business Insider, she worked at Bloomberg and Forbes.Tesla: Inside 'Project Rodeo,' the Tesla effort pushing the limits of self-driving technologyInternal Tesla salary database shows Elon Musk's strategy: Lower salaries, bigger stock grantsTesla tells staff it plans to roll out its Robotaxi service in San Francisco this weekendTesla has been working on modified Model Ys for its Robotaxi programTesla prioritizes Musk's and other 'VIP' drivers' data to train self-driving softwareAshok Elluswamy is the most powerful Tesla executive you've never heard ofxAI:Internal documents reveal how Elon Musk's xAI trains Grok to be the anti-woke chatbotXAI's Macrohard project stalls as Tesla ramps up a similar AI agent effortElon Musk's xAI plans to supply computing power to coding startup CursorWar rooms, group chats, and video games: Inside Elon Musk's AI startupBehind Grok's 'sexy' settings, workers review explicit and disturbing contentElon Musk's xAI lays off hundreds of workers tasked with training GrokEVs and robots:Fisker employees are fixing some customers' cars with parts from the company's vehicle 'graveyard,' sources sayFisker Ocean reservation cancellations top 40,000 as the EV company tries to fight off bankruptcy, leaked data showsInside the downfall of Henrik Fisker's second automotive startup, which just filed for bankruptcyInside the glass-walled Tesla lab where workers train the Optimus robot to act like a humanInside OpenAI's renewed push into robotics