Tesla laid off 14,000 employees worldwide, and Musk fell to the mortal world

Geek Park

2024-04-16 07:37Posted on the official account of Tianjin Geek Park

Tesla is once again on the cusp of public opinion, this time because of layoffs.

On April 15, according to media reports, Musk just released an all-staff email that Tesla is about to lay off 10% of its workforce worldwide.

Subsequently, Musk posted: "Over the years, we have grown rapidly and opened several factories around the world. With this rapid growth, there has been a duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare for the next phase of growth of the company, it is extremely important to focus on all aspects of the company to reduce costs and increase productivity. 」

Data shows that by the end of 2023, Tesla will have 140,000 employees worldwide. About 14,000 people will be affected by the layoffs. This figure is smaller than the previous market forecast of layoffs. In the morning, some media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the number of layoffs could be as high as 20%.

At the close, Tesla's stock price was $161.48 per share.

14,000 employees were laid off suddenly

This isn't the first time Tesla has laid off employees.

Back in 2022, Tesla decided to cut about 10% of its jobs due to pessimistic expectations about the economic outlook. The decision was also made by Musk in an email to executives. At the same time, Musk also suspended global hiring activities and increased the strategy of hourly workers, which appeared to be a mitigation measure for layoffs.

Recently, Business Insider reported that Tesla's production line at its Gigafactory in Austin has adjusted its working hours, and the original 12-hour double shift has been reduced to 11 hours during the day shift and 10.5 hours on the night shift. Not only is the plant responsible for the production of the much-talked-about Cybertruck and Model Y, but it is also a research and development base for Tesla's next-generation vehicles.

Meanwhile, at Tesla's other factories in Sparks, Nevada, and Fremont, California, workers appear unaffected by the new work schedules and remain in 12-hour shifts. This suggests that Tesla's strategy for different factories may be different, perhaps based on local production needs and economic benefits.

Tesla's Cybertruck |, which is touring China tesla

In fact, rumors of Tesla's layoffs have been spreading since February. In February, Tesla postponed performance reviews for some of its employees, a move that sparked speculation that Tesla could start a new round of layoffs. Subsequently, the media followed up on the news.

At that time, Tesla required all management to evaluate the "criticality" of its team members, implementing a "binary evaluation" system that directly judged the importance of each employee's position. This approach is clearly aimed at screening out the most critical talent for the company, while implying a potential threat of layoffs for other employees. Furthermore, Tesla has even canceled the semi-annual performance reviews of some employees, which are all signs that Tesla is preparing for a new round of layoffs.

Tesla's quarterly report became the straw that broke the camel's back, accelerating the pace of its layoffs. In the first quarter of this year, Tesla delivered a total of 386,800 vehicles worldwide, down 8.5% year-on-year and 20.2% quarter-on-quarter, well below analysts' previous expectations of 449,000 vehicles. This data not only shows a decline in Tesla's deliveries, but also a quarter-over-quarter decline for the first time since 2020.

This has exacerbated concerns about Tesla's future performance. On April 9, Wall Street investment bank Robert W. Baird analyst Ben Kallo also warned in a research report that Tesla's global deliveries in the second quarter may decline again year-on-year, and Tesla's global deliveries in the second quarter are expected to be 444,500 vehicles, down 4.6% year-on-year.

The price of the new Model 3 has been raised to 245,900 yuan tesla

In addition to its own problems, global electric vehicle sales are slowing down, which is also forcing Tesla to make changes. Adam Jonas, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, noted in a recent report: "Global EV momentum is waning, and market supply has outstripped demand. 」

Innovation without breakthroughs, return to the mortal world

Tesla's goal has always been to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. Tesla's goal is to sell 20 million electric vehicles annually by 2030.

But in 2024, Tesla's pace may have to slow down. During the earnings call, Tesla warned that growth in 2024 is likely to be lower than last year, but did not give a specific target. In 2023, Tesla's global vehicle deliveries increased by 38% year-on-year, and Tesla has been aiming for an average annual growth of 50% for several years.

Tesla's explanation for this is that "we are currently in the middle of two major growth waves. We are focused on getting the next wave of growth well executed, which is driven by next-generation vehicles, energy storage, fully autonomous driving, and other projects. 」

Tesla's valuation has long been underpinned by its sales momentum and Musk's commitment to transform the company into a leader in robotics and AI. Musk has said, "Tesla is an artificial intelligence/robotics company, although many people think of it as a car company. 」

So in the previous earnings call, Musk spent a long time talking about the progress in artificial intelligence and robotics. Among them, regarding Full Self-Driving (FSD), only employees and a small number of customers are currently using it, but Tesla will push it to all customers in the United States who have purchased Full Self-driving in the coming weeks. This is the first time that AI has been used not only for object perception, but also for path planning and vehicle control.

Shanghai, 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, visitors photograph Tesla robot | Visual China

In terms of humanoid robots, Musk said there is an opportunity to produce a certain number of Optimus in 2025. But it's a brand new product, there's a lot of uncertainty, and they're going to update the public every few months on the progress, and as for the progress of chips, Tesla is now going hand in hand with Nvidia and Dojo. Judging by the progress so far, Dojo has a bright future, but the development progress is relatively slow.

Overall, Tesla is going through an awkward and critical period: it needs to find a balance between innovation, technological superiority and strategic leadership, and profits at scale.

On the one hand, Musk deeply understands the importance of innovation to maintain absolute superiority, and his character also emphasizes the spirit of innovation. From first-principles thinking, he has promoted the exploration of multiple technology lines, such as large models, humanoid robots, autonomous driving chips and other fields, which seem to be conquering the "heavenly realm", on the other hand, these innovations will require a lot of investment and a long time to deliver sufficiently advanced results. For example, the field of humanoid robots and large models still needs a lot of investment and a long time to form landing products with innovative advantages.

At the same time, Tesla's past advantages in technology and products are weakening, and its scale advantage is also catching up, so it may be difficult for the market capitalization system to avoid returning from the "heavenly realm" to the mortal world.

Musk is a man who needs to be in a state of "non-consensus" to show impressive achievements and strength. In that day-to-day business environment where there is no technological generational gap, that is, positional warfare in a highly regulated and high-consensus field, his light has dimmed. Although he is currently facing an unavoidable embarrassing period, Musk still holds the "key card" in his hand, maintaining Tesla's position as a "wind breaker" in the automotive industry.

View original image 68K

• 

• 

•