Elon Musk says he wants to personally approve every new Tesla hire
Elon Musk told Tesla employees that he wants to approve every new hire at the company personally. It’s a surprising move for a company hiring about 30,000 people per year.
A Tesla layoffs timeline of job cuts and hiring freezes
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- Tesla isn’t immune to economic headwinds.
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been through periods of rapid growth and job cuts over the years.
- Here’s a timeline of the company’s recent layoff announcements and hiring freezes.
October of 2017
In 2017, Tesla laid off 700 workers after running into production issues. The layoffs happened after “production bottlenecks” on the Model 3 car. The Model 3 was Tesla’s first attempt at creating a mass-market car.
Summer of 2018
A year later, Tesla let go of 9% of its employees. The layoffs were part of a company-wide restructuring.
Tesla laid off 3,500 employees in an attempt to boost profitability. Musk said that the layoffs were part of a restructuring to make the company “communicate better, eliminate bureaucracy and move faster.”
The layoffs mostly affected salaried employees, sparing production-line workers as the company ramped up Model 3 production.
Early 2019
In early 2019, Tesla laid off 7% of its staff in its second round of layoffs in just seven months.
Cuts occurred in its sales, delivery and Model S and Model X production teams, CNBC reported at the time.
June 2022
Tesla laid off 10% of employees and implemented a hiring freeze in June of 2022. Musk said he felt the economy was starting to turn.
Tesla cut jobs after CEO Elon Musk announced that he planned to cut 10% of salaried staff as he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy. Hundreds of those Tesla employees laid off were from the Autopilot team as the electric-vehicle maker shuttered a California facility. Tesla also paused hiring.
That same summer, Musk got tough on the Tesla WFH policy, telling executive staff to return to the office or quit.
February 2023
A union accused Tesla of illegally firing employees. Tesla is one of the only major automakers in the US that is not represented by a union.
Tesla laid off dozens of staff at its plant in Buffalo, New York, after workers announced plans to unionize, the Workers United union said in a complain.
The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claiming that Tesla unlawfully terminated some staff “in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity.”
Tesla denied the allegation, stating that the employees were laid off due to poor performance instead.
Current Tesla jobs
Tesla appears to be hiring again.
As of early June, there were dozens of open roles on Tesla’s job board, spanning from Texas to California, Nevada, and other states. The company said it had roughly 126,000 workers as of December 31, 2022.
Elon Musk says he wants to personally approve every new Tesla hire
Elon Musk told Tesla employees that he wants to approve every new hire at the company personally. It’s a surprising move for a company hiring about 30,000 people per year.
Electrek obtained an email that the CEO wrote to Tesla employees today.
In the email, Musk said that he wants to get a better understanding of hiring at Tesla; in order to do so, he seems to indicate that he needs to approve all new hires – even contractors:
No one can join Tesla, even as a contractor, until you receive my email approval.
This is likely going to result in a mild hiring freeze, considering Tesla has been hiring about 30,000 new employees per year on average over the last three years. It’s hard to imagine that Musk can approve new hires at a rate anywhere near that.
It’s not clear how long the CEO plans to require his personal email approval on new hires.
Tesla implemented a brief hiring freeze last summer and a round of layoffs, but the company quickly resumed and ended last year with about 127,000 employees – up 28% year over year.
The company is trying to cut costs in order to compensate for its significant price reductions across its entire lineup in 2023.
Top comment by shawman
Liked by 45 people
Terrible idea. It clearly shows he has no trust in his team. No way a CEO of a large company can scale up to approve every hire. If he wants to streamline, just put in a right process. He could even automate some of the checks he thinks is required for a position.
The automaker still enjoys industry-leading margins on electric vehicles, but this might change following further price drops in April.
Electrek’s Take
It could really be just Elon trying to understand Tesla’s hiring process better, but effectively, this could result in a major slowdown in hiring.
He has used the same strategy in the past, like during the major cost-cutting effort in 2019 when he said that he and CFO Zach Kirkhorn would have to sign off on every page of spending for the entire company.
Workers are way more careful about things when they know the CEO will personally be taking a look. This looks like a similar approach with this email approval for hiring.
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