Tesla cuts 600 jobs in California amid mass layoffs

Innovation

By Ty Roush

Over 600 jobs will be cut across Tesla’s workforce in California, including senior-level positions at a manufacturing plant and the company’s engineering headquarters, according to a filing, the latest layoffs for the Elon Musk-owned firm after announcing mass cuts earlier this year.

The electric vehicle maker said earlier this year it would cut 10% of its workforce.

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Key Takeaways

The layoffs include 601 employees at manufacturing facilities and engineering offices in Palo Alto and Fremont, California, according to a May 13 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice.
Tesla will lay off 378 employees at the company’s Fremont-based manufacturing plant and 223 more employees at its engineering headquarters in Palo Alto during a two-week period beginning June 20, according to the notice.
Among the positions eliminated by Tesla include directors for environmental health and safety and user experience design in Fremont and two directors of technical programs in Palo Alto.
WARN Act filings require companies to provide employees notice of mass layoffs or plant closures 60 days in advance, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
The notices come less than a month after Tesla said it would lay off more than 3,300 employees across California, including positions in Palo Alto and Fremont.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.

Key Background

Musk said in an internal memo last month Tesla would cut more than 10% of its global workforce, impacting more than 10,000 employees. The layoffs included more than 6,000 people across California and Texas, where nearly 2,700 positions at Tesla’s gigafactory were eliminated.

Tesla fired its team working on creating Superchargers a week later, which affected about 500 people, though it reportedly decided to rehire some workers earlier this month.

Job cuts come amid sliding shares for the company and Tesla falling short on deliveries for the first time since 2020. The firm previously fired about 3.5% of its staff in 2022, 3,000 workers in 2019 and about 9% of its workforce in 2018.