Tesla is shutting down its office in San Mateo and cutting 200 jobs

Tesla is shutting down it’s entire San Mateo office and laying off 200 workers after Elon Musk vowed to slash salaried staff by 10%

• The company told about half the staffers at the office were told their position had been eliminated, while those that remain were told they will be relocated 
• The San Mateo offices were heavily involved with the Tesla Autopilot driver-assistance system. Staff were informed of the decision Tuesday 
• CEO Elon Musk said last week in an interview that he plans to cut about 10 percent of the company’s salary staff and will instead hire more hourly workers 
• The billionaire sent an internal email warning earlier this month of the need for cuts amid a gloomy economic outlook due to inflation and brutal war in Ukraine

Tesla is cutting nearly 200 employees from its office in San Mateo, California as part of continued cuts by the electric car giants that will see the location close altogether. 

The company told at least 195 of the location’s 276 staffers at the office were told their position had been eliminated, while those that remain were told they will be relocated, according to TechCrunch. 

The San Mateo offices were heavily involved with the Tesla Autopilot driver-assistance system. Staff were informed of the decision Tuesday.

Those laid off were considered ‘moderately low-skilled, low-wage’ workers that often did jobs like determining if the company’s driver assistance program correctly identified objects.   

CEO Elon Musk said last week in an interview that he plans to cut about 10 percent of the company’s salary staff and will instead hire more hourly workers. 

The billionaire sent an internal email warning earlier this month of the need for cuts amid a gloomy economic outlook due to inflation and the brutal war in Ukraine. Musk himself said he had a ‘super bad feeling’ about the economy. 

Tesla is cutting about 200 employees from its office in San Mateo, California as part of continued cuts by the electric car giants that will see the location close altogether

CEO Elon Musk said last week in an interview that he plans to cut about 10 percent of the company’s salary staff and will instead hire more hourly workers

The San Mateo offices were heavily involved with the Tesla Autopilot driver-assistance system. Staff were informed of the decision Tuesday

But he did not elaborate on why he was worried in the brief message and did not comment on whether it would affect his $44billion Twitter takeover.

It also comes as Musk has declared his disdain for working from home.

The richest man on earth recently sent out another email to employees to say ‘if you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.’

‘Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,’ Musk, 50, wrote in a second email sent to staff just hours after the first, which was leaked and reported by Teslarati.

The message, shared by Twitter user @SamNissim, bears the subject line ‘To be super clear’ and was sent to an email list labeled ‘Everyone’ at 10:51 pm.

In it, Musk reasserted his commitment to statements made in the previous message –  and seemed to take a shot at woke Silicon Valley companies for their remote policies in the process.

‘The office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office,’ it reads, reiterating assertions from the prior email, which stated staff would only be allowed to work from home if they worked 40 hours a week in-office.   

Musk then declared: ‘If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.’

Outspoken CEO Elon Musk has now sent out a second email to Tesla staff, clarifying a previous assertion sent to execs saying they will be fired unless they return to the office full time

‘Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,’ Musk wrote in a second email sent to staff hours after the first, which was leaked and widely shared

Musk has previously hit out against remote working policies and blasted Americans for ‘trying to avoid going to work at all’ and compared them to staff in China who stay at the factory ‘burning the 3am oil’.

In April, staff at Tesla’s Gigafactory were made to sleep at work when production resumed after a three-week shutdown. 

The factory started operating as a ‘closed loop system to avoid further shutdowns caused by China’s strict Zero Covid policy.

Workers were given a sleeping bag and mattress and part of the factory floor to camp out on. 

Responding to a question on Twitter from a follower about whether he has a comment to ‘people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept’, Musk wrote back: ‘They should pretend to work somewhere else’

Food of around $63 a day was provided to each employee but they were expected to work 12 hours a day, with one day off every six days.

Before the temporary measures were imposed, staff reportedly worked eight-hour shifts with four days on and two days off.   

Before Shanghai’s lockdown on March 28, the Gigafactory produced 2,000 cars a day and made half of the vehicles the company delivered worldwide last year.

Last month, Musk, who is currently in negotiations with Twitter over buying the social media giant, seemingly took aim at the company’s lax remote working policies.

He said he asked his Twitter followers if he should transform the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters into a homeless shelters ‘since no one shows up anyway’.

It comes after Twitter brass – who offered staffers the option of working from home ‘forever’ during the pandemic – reopened its offices March 15, with remote work remaining an option for staffers.

Musk has warned in recent weeks about the risks of recession, but ordering a hiring freeze and staff cuts was the most direct and high-profile message of its kind.

Remotely addressing a conference in mid-May in Miami Beach, he said: ‘I think we are probably in a recession and that recession will get worse.’

More than 700 Tesla customers complain about ‘shadow braking’ in Model 3 and Model Ys

More than 750 Tesla owners have complained to U.S. safety regulators that cars operating on the automaker’s partially automated driving systems have suddenly stopped on roadways for no apparent reason.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed the number in a detailed information request letter to Tesla that was posted Friday on the agency’s website.

The 14-page letter dated May 4 asks the automaker for all consumer and field reports it has received about false braking, as well as reports of crashes, injuries, deaths and property damage claims. It also asks whether the company’s ‘Full Self Driving’ and automatic emergency braking systems were active at the time of any incident.

The agency began investigating phantom braking in Tesla’s Models 3 and Y last February after getting 354 complaints. The probe covers an estimated 416,000 vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years. In February, the agency said it had no reports of crashes or injuries.

The letter gives Tesla a deadline of June 20 to respond to the information request but says the company can ask for an extension. A message was left early Friday seeking comment from Tesla.   

Almost 100,000 people were employed at Tesla and its subsidiaries at the end of 2021, its annual SEC filing showed.

Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomic research at ING, said: ‘Musk’s bad feeling is shared by many people.

‘We’re talking about stagnation and a global economy which has to go through significant structural change, such as decarbonisation, deglobalisation and adjusting to older societies.

‘But we are not talking about global recession. We expect a cooling of the global economy towards the end of the year.

‘The US will cool off, while China and Europe are not going to rebound. Laying off workers, however, is not the best reaction. We will need skilled workers more than ever in the future. This could turn into firing and then hiring.’

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive of JPMorgan Chase, described the challenges facing the US economy earlier this week as akin to a ‘hurricane’.

However, although financial experts acknowledged a ‘bad feeling’, many were unsure a global recession is on the cards.

Fiona Cincotta, a financial markets analyst at City Index in London, said: ‘Although the Fed thinks a soft landing is possible… there are some warning signs in the economy.

‘We know that growth is slowing and inflation remains persistently high and we know that the Fed will need to act aggressively to bring inflation back down.

‘The question is – will they be able to act as aggressively as they need to, and obviously Elon Musk doesn’t think that they’re going to be able to, without putting the economy into a deep recession. China slowdown is an added problem.’

Other companies have cut jobs or are slowing or pausing hiring amid weakening demand. Last month, Netflix said it had laid off about 150 people, mostly in the US, and Peloton said in February it would cut 2,800 jobs.

Meta, Uber and other technology companies have slowed hiring. In June 2018, Musk said Tesla would cut 9 per cent of its workforce as the then-loss-making company struggled to ramp up output of Model 3 electric sedans.

Meanwhile the world’s richest man is still embroiled in a months-long deal to buy Silicon Valley social media giant Twitter for roughly $44billion.

Musk earlier this week asked Tesla employees to return to the office or leave the company. Pictured: Tesla China-made Model 3 vehicles are seen during a delivery event at the carmaker’s factory in Shanghai, China (File Photo)

The email, titled ‘pause all hiring worldwide’, was sent to Tesla executives on Thursday, and underscored an increasingly gloomy economic outlook for the globe, as prices soar and war in Ukraine passes its 100th day (pictured a Tesla factory in Fremont in California)

Meanwhile, world’s richest man Musk is currently embroiled in a months-long deal to but Silicon Valley social media giant Twitter for roughly $44 billion

His stark anti-remote sentiments are expected to fly in the face of the company’s more relaxed work from home rules – which allow employees to work remotely forever.

In April, after the deal was announced, Musk seemed to take a shot at this policy, asking his followers if he should transform the company’s Bay Area headquarters into a homeless shelter because ‘no one shows up anyway.’

Twitter’s top brass – who offered staffers the option of working from home ‘forever’ during the pandemic – reopened its offices March 15, with remote work remaining an option for staffers.

‘It’s been almost two years since we closed our offices and travel and I’m excited to announce that we’re ready to fully open up business travel and all our offices around the world!’ Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a note to employees posted to Twitter March 3.

‘Business travel is back effective immediately, and office openings will start on March 15,’ the exec wrote.

Twitter has not issued any in-person requirements for its staffers. The deal is expected to close later this year. Tesla was not immediately available for comment. 

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