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Tesla to lay off more than 10% of its staff
- maxehmookau 3y ago[flagged]
- ineedaj0b 3y ago[flagged]
- maxehmookau 3y agoYeah, except these are people's jobs and livelihoods, not someone trying to get more obvious abs. Dismissing unions as unimportant here is a mistake. The lack of any real union power mean that the board, and CEO, have more power. Therefore, large cuts (1 in 10!) are able to happen with relative impunity.
- cbeach 3y ago[flagged]
- maxehmookau 3y agoThere's no hate from me. There's a bit of snark, sure; but no hate. He's specifically called out his own dislike of trade unions. I'm calling that out as being really very relevant to Tesla's ability to fire 10% of its staff.
- ineedaj0b 3y agoThanks. It’s a little odd they go so wild. I did mention unions and that’s a touchy subject too but the Elon disalignment movement has no brakes unless people decide to use them.
- klyrs 3y ago> Musk has barely done anything unethical compared to other CEOs, but he's nonetheless ruffled powerful feathers, and there's a backlash against him. Yeah. The court of public opinion is pretty powerful. It isn't a grand conspiracy. Dude made an ass of himself in public. A decade ago, the common approach to such situations was to resign and retain one's dignity and preserve stock value. But Musk, like Trump, prefers to fan the flames and fail spectacularly. We hate Musk, because this is kayfabe, and Musk is a heel. This is how Musk wants us to feel. This is how he wants us to react. You love him, but I promise, he doesn't love you back. He only loves that we're both talking about him.
- cbeach 3y agoWhat a tragic waste of talent it would be if people were forced to give up their career after a single embarrassing snafu. All because of the "court of public opinion" If Musk had quit after his first mistake, America may have never regained its space launch capability, OpenAI may never have existed, paraplegics may not be controlling computers with their minds, and electric cars might have been a pipe dream. I'm exhausted by all these witch hunts and public campaigns against individuals (which are often motivated by political difference as opposed to behaviour). Let's focus on people's achievements rather than their differences.
- klyrs 3y agoExcuse me but what the fuck do you mean by "witch hunt?" This man slanders people he doesn't like, calling down the hounds to harass, dox, and threaten his enemies. He's a man in a position of incredible power, being criticized for harmful actions -- that's the opposite of a witch hunt. But when he scapegoats his enemies, he's organizing actual witch hunts against the powerless. Trump likes that term, "witch hunt," too. This is pure narcissism. He plays the victim when his extremely public misbehavior is noticed and has consequences. Musk is no different. > Let's focus on people's achievements rather than their differences. No, Hitler wasn't a cool dude because of his accomplishments. We evaluate the whole person. Always have, always will.
- 3y ago
- GardenLetter27 3y agoIt's a shame, it feels like we're moving backwards in some ways. Like in Europe, Tesla sales are down and we are introducing huge tariffs on electric vehicles from China, meanwhile the German Greens are happy pushing for more coal and lignite burning (since they opposed nuclear power, and now Russian gas). It's hard to believe that the self-driving tech will develop well at this rate.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- KingOfCoders 3y agoGerman Greens are pushing for renewable energies. Nuclear is expensive to build [0]. It is expensive operate, even with the massive subsidies of insurance and waste deposit costs by the taxpayer. On top of that Germany has no exploitable Uranium deposits any more (after delivering Uranium to the USSR for decades, mine was closed 1990), so Germany would need to import nuclear fuel, e.G. from Russia (as the US does [1]). I don't think depending on Russia for energy security is a good idea. [Edit] Hard coal and ignite usage is down https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig1-installed-net-power-generation-capacity-germany-2002-2023.png https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c... [1] https://kyivindependent.com/german-customs-detains-ship-loaded-with-sanctioned-russian-uranium-lumber/ https://kyivindependent.com/german-customs-detains-ship-load...
- LunaSea 3y ago> On top of that Germany has no exploitable Uranium deposits any more, so Germany would need to import nuclear fuel, e.G. from Russia (as the US does) This is incorrect. Uranium is quite common and could be supplied by Canada, Australia, Kazakstan, Niger and a few other countries.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
- gravescale 3y ago[flagged]
- jliptzin 3y agoIt depends who they lay off. Sometimes when it happens everyone breathes a sigh of relief that the grim reaper is finally coming for the slackers who are just dead weight holding everyone back.
- silverquiet 3y agoLarge layoffs are never a precise exercise. I saw a really great engineer once move to a different team that got cut a few weeks later, and that stuck with me. And once you start getting repeated rounds of layoffs, the anxiety that perhaps today your number will come up only builds and morale falls. Once you actually get the notice, it may actually be a relief.
- ghaff 3y agoIn even a modestly large layoff--which 10% probably qualifies for--there's just a lot of wrong place/wrong time. No one is devoting a lot of cycles to rehoming people who may be "good" but just aren't in situations that make the best use of them right now.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago"we don't hire and retain the unlucky"
- ineedaj0b 3y agoThe coming Chinese EV storm will cause Tesla to struggle. All car manufacturers will struggle. I wonder if the Chinese will pull a Toyota (high quality, and cheap) or if they’ll end up being a different flavor
- api 3y agoI’m not in the car biz and I’ve seen this coming with clarity for over a decade. If I can see it then how is it that every car company hasn’t been preparing low cost EV offerings of their own? A few are but most seem in denial. Ford is the only US one I’ve heard rumors about having something in the works. Tesla meanwhile spent tons of capital and time on ridiculous microniche products like the cybertruck.
- LunaSea 3y ago> If I can see it then how is it that every car company hasn’t been preparing low cost EV offerings of their own? Because the low cost Chinese EVs is a dumping operation organised by China thanks to low cost manufacturing and large public subsidies. You can't necessarily compete against this as a company if your government doesn't protect you.
- __alexs 3y agoDumping is a specific thing. Are Chinese EVs priced lower in international markets than domestically?
- echoangle 3y agoIs that a requirement for dumping? Isn’t Dumping just selling at a loss?
- dagw 3y agoIs that a requirement for dumping? From a legal/WTO case standpoint, yes. Selling at a loss in general is perfectly legal, and lots of companies do that for all kinds of perfectly legitimate reasons. Using price discrimination to sell at a loss only in certain markets with the intention of damaging the domestic market in that region is when you get into trouble.
- anothernewdude 3y agoSilly. They're cash rich and have skilled staff. If they can't do anything with that 10% they should quit business all together.
- msoad 3y agoBecause markets are short sighted and the job of the CEO is to confront that. However in this case Elon needs a quick bump in the stock price for obvious reasons
- londons_explore 3y agoIn any workforce there are 10% slackers or people who overcomplicate and derail projects. If you can identify these people, then getting rid of them is the right move. But it's super hard to figure out who they are.
- ulfw 3y agoBullshit. You don't do a mass layoff in that case but get rid of 'slackers' over time as you identify them. This has nothing to do with that. There's huge demand issues as Teslas are getting really old and nothing useful is in the pipeline (and no that childish truck doesn't count).
- londons_explore 3y agoObvious slackers, sure. But some people aren't obvious slackers. They might take a simple task ('you're in charge of logistics within the warehouse'), and make it far more complex than necessary ('we're gonna need 3 teams of logistics workers who will move parts only in a clockwise direction as directed by this homegrown custom designed work scheduling system, which by the way we're gonna need a team of 10 coders to maintain'). Those people aren't slackers. In fact, to everyone else around them, they look like the best workers who achieve the most. But, by overcomplicating tasks, they in fact pour resources down the drain when they solve a simple problem the hard way. Sometimes these workers are overcomplicating tasks deliberately (an excuse to become a team lead), sometimes they have misunderstood the requirements, and sometimes because they failed to research or take advice from others on a simpler/easier/cheaper/faster approach. Either way, firing them is good for the business, but usually bad for morale (because the people near them see a hard worker being fired and become scared about their own position, often leading to the real best people jumping ship). So, the common approach is to do mass firings every ~5 years, because the morale hit is lower to do it all in one go.
- thecupisblue 3y agoSeems like another way to avoid the death spiral trap Elon has set up for himself. - Bought Twitter with Tesla stock as collateral - Tesla faces falling EV sales and external competition - Unionisation pressures, declining product quality, Elon losing his reach and audience's good graces - Stock price falling too low can trigger a margin call on his loans - Starts actual marketing, price cuts - Price cuts chew into profits, stock falls - Announces "real FSD" for 100th time - Announces "robotaxis" - Layoffs happening While this might end up with a small bump in the price to avoid the margin calls, it might also end up being part of a downward spiral for Tesla in the end, depending on where and what they are cutting. It would be unfortunate to see Tesla crash after everything due to his wish to buy Twitter and I think we might see him ousted in the following year or so. Before it was "Elon is Tesla's marketing driver so we can't kick him out", nowadays it seems way less so with him being more of a detractor.
- neverokay 3y agoHe’s also concerned about this: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-ceo-musk-chinese-ev-firms-will-demolish-rivals-without-trade-barriers-2024-01-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-... If I could I’d accumulate Tesla starting next year as fed rate cuts kick in.
- rvz 3y agoI would do it now. Even better if TSLA goes 30 - 50% down. Price has to go down before it rises back. The rivals such as Fisker, Rivian and Lucid are the ones which should be worried at this point.
- deaddodo 3y agoMusk just parrots hard free market conservative opinions and uses his "success" helming Tesla as a legitimizer. He's rarely been more than half accurate on any of his economic predictions.
- rsynnott 3y ago
- throwaway63467 3y agoElectric car market seems to have shifted somehow, even seems we’re seeing some backtracking regarding ICE cars as demand for EVs seems a bit stagnant. I’m still holding out, luckily I don’t need a car as buying an EV seems like a great way to burn money now (but I guess that applies to new cars in general, prices are ridiculous).
- acdha 3y agoThere's a big confound between the EVs which make sense for many buyers and the massive, expensive SUVs the manufacturers want to sell because they have such high margins. Tesla’s Cybertruck is a rich man’s toy – not good for real off-roading, tiny cargo volume, etc. – but it soaked up a ton of resources with a very complex design and there just aren’t that many people looking for a truck that expensive regardless of quality. If they’d put the same level of effort into making a sub-$30k car it would have been less of a publicity stunt but there’d be at least an order of magnitude more potential buyers and would have shipped years earlier.
- mavhc 3y agoBed cargo volume: 2831 litres, Ford F-150: 2191 litres
- acdha 3y agoIt’s 1.8x1.2m versus 1.7x1.3m for the smallest size F-150, which has larger sizes are 2x1.3m and 2.5x1.3m.
- choko 3y agoI don't think that's what is holding ev back. They need to put more into battery research. They are too heavy, charge too slow, and lose capacity in cold temps. In addition, I can't find a charger within 15 or 20 min of my house, but there's probably 20 gas stations in that radius. I'll buy electric once it's not a pain in the ass.
- 3y ago
- davidguetta 3y agoWhy are layoffs always seen in a bad light. Sometimes what you need is to trim the fat.
- alexander2002 3y agothats a nice analogy!
- TheAlchemist 3y agoBecause they are not seen in a bad light ? Layoffs are usually pushing stock prices higher - especially for software companies. It's a different story though when a labor intensive manufacturer with a 50% projected growth is laying off people...
- rsynnott 3y agoGenerally, a company doing layoffs is either experiencing a demand shortfall if the layoffs are associated with current business (manufacturing, sales, etc etc), or is sacrificing future revenue to cut costs now if the layoffs are associated with R&D, sales development, etc etc. Neither are great signs.
- spicyusername 3y agoMaybe don't hire fat, though...
- jowea 3y agoBecause there are more people who care about the jobs than care about the stock price.
- paxys 3y ago"Trim the fat" is already happening every year during performance reviews. Companies like Tesla in fact brag about their cutthroat high-performance culture and cutting the bottom X% if they aren't up to par (e.g. see all their job listings, or posts like https://www.tesla.com/blog/in-response-false-allegations https://www.tesla.com/blog/in-response-false-allegations). If the company is doing mass layoffs on top of that then it pretty much always means financial trouble. And these layoffs tend to affect the talent that you want to keep.
- mavhc 3y agoIs this different to the 2017 700 job cuts, or the 2018 9% job cuts, or the 2019 7% job cuts, or the 2022 10% job cuts?
- gorbachev 3y agoWith that context, it feels like layoff at Tesla aren't all that difficult decisions, despite what Elon Mush said about the layoffs.
- mavhc 3y agoWell, you always have to say that, "I care about my employees, they're real people, with real feelings". Picking which ones to get rid of is the difficult decision though
- 1970-01-01 3y agoNot really. Tesla forecast 2024 would be a globally bad year for all EV markets, and that's including their EV sales. Everything they predicted seems to be inline with what is happening.
- thecupisblue 3y agoYes - the context is different. Current context is low sales, lower margins, lots of competition, falling stock price. In 2018, it was restructuring. In 2019, it was "profitability cuts". In 2022, it was "elon has bad vibes about economy". Now, in 2024, Tesla is 1.5x the employee size than in 2022, but does 2x the employees cut, after failing to reach targets and amid high market pressure. Do the math.
- r00fus 3y agoIt's about Tesla stock being dinged recently for missing expectations. If things go as I expect, Tesla will need to restate or miss their 2nd quarter also. This will move Tesla from being a "tech stock" (value = high multiple of earnings) to a "car stock" (much lower multiples). This, in turn, impacts Elon's securitization of Twitter. It might also impact his hold on Tesla as well. Also aligns with overall anti-EV push by big-oil.
- jaimex2 3y ago[flagged]
- paxys 3y agoRobo taxi announcement didn't pump the stock as much as expected?
- nova22033 3y agoIf this had happened to a company on the other side of the culture war, Elon would have responded with "Go woke, go broke" https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aelonmusk%20woke%20broke&src=typed_query https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aelonmusk%20woke%20broke&... https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770118906318856513 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770118906318856513 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1768713092693721230 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1768713092693721230
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoNo Datadome Javascript: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-lay-off-more-10-094817820.html https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-lay-off-more-10-0948...
- tmellon2 2y agoCould Elon pay the 10 % of his staff by taking a personal paycut from 56 Billion to One Billion USD ?
- londons_explore 3y agoI wonder if the CEO will be amongst the layoffs...
- revskill 3y agoDefinitely yes.
- hackerlight 3y agoIf the board acts in the interest of shareholders, but they've breached fiduciary duties in the past: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/02/13/chancery-finds-tesla-board-breached-fiduciary-duties/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/02/13/chancery-finds-te...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aramova 3y agoDon't you threaten me with a good time.
- ketchupdebugger 3y agoElon will take full responsibility
- guax 3y agoCEO is usually only responsible for the good stuff. When bad things happen its market forces or something else.