• Elon Musk wanted Tesla to reduce its workforce by one-fifth, Bloomberg reported.
  • Musk wanted the layoffs to match the drop in quarterly vehicle deliveries.
  • Tesla delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter of 2024, a 20.1% drop from the last quarter.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk at one point wanted the EV giant to trim its workforce by 20%, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The reduction, Musk reasoned, should match the reduction in vehicle deliveries between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, per Bloomberg.

  • @TallonMetroid@lemmy.world
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    1907 months ago

    If a full fifth of your workforce needs to be sacked, it’s clearly a management issue, so let’s start at the top.

    • @Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      937 months ago

      He needs to fire the idiot in charge of the whole thing. I bet Tesla could make a recovery if he wasn’t at its helm, even if he still owned the same amount of shares. Even more so if his ego could handle hiring a replacement that was all too happy to vocally throw him under the bus.

      • @assembly@lemmy.world
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        407 months ago

        I think the problem is that it’s such a house of cards. It has no reason to be worth the current stock price which is higher than multiple larger car brands combined. The stock value is based on this legacy idea that Musk will deliver amazing innovation. If he stays, his Twitter bullshit is going to negatively impact the brand and if he leaves, the stock will drop to a realistic valuation based on fundamentals. It’s a bit of a lose/lose.

        • @frezik@midwest.social
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          137 months ago

          Long term, the company’s biggest value is a charging network. Their cars aren’t ahead of the rest of the industry anymore, except maybe in live software updates. Even that’s been tainted by updates that make the car good or bad depending on the day of the week. The charging network, though, is only going to have more customers as other companies adopt Tesla’s plug.

          • @jdhdbdk@lemmy.world
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            37 months ago

            That only applies to the USA in Europe, or at least in Germany and Austria the charging network is not better than the other providers.

      • @tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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        237 months ago

        He gets very mad if you imply or even ask if he should be accountable for any failings of his companies.

        And this brain dead idea of his is literally just punishment like he’s an ancient slave lord. Like this will motivate the remaining workers to double their output.

        • @jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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          47 months ago

          I think you’re wrong. I think it is like a modern slave lord, which he is accustomed to via the emerald mining.

      • Logi
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        117 months ago

        He needs to fire the idiot in charge of the whole thing.

        Thats not his job. That’s the boards job. And yes, that’s what they need to do.

      • @nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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        87 months ago

        Naw, their long term fucked by the Cybertruck pr-orders. They can’t reliably manufacture it quickly enough to make good profit on it. Firing 20% of their manufacturing people is likely just gonna make building them harder.

        And they have to build like 750k more of them at a rate of less than 100k per year.

        Long term fucked by a child’s design of a truck.

  • Granbo's Holy Hotrod
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    1027 months ago

    This is where real business men shine. Anyone can ride the wave of right place, right time. It blows my mind how much of our tax dollars are funneled to this bafoon.

  • @gasgiant@lemmy.ml
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    797 months ago

    We have sold 1/5 less cars. So we need 1/5 less workers.

    And people were questioning if he was worth his enormous pay packet.

    • @dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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      27 months ago

      I’ve been in multiple meetings with Elon Musk. He is honestly very smart… in some ways. That was back when he was just barely a 1 billion-aire and came close to being bankrupt. I think a combination of years of overconsumption since his multi-billionaire status allowed him to not be as on-point plus him being on the spectrum and not being smart in other areas (like running a business) brought him to this point.

  • @NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Let’s say we take this at face value and that reducing staff by % reduction is the 100% right move to do.

    In Q1 tesla faced a week long outage at Berlin due to an attack on a power station.

    In Q1 tesla had a multi week outage due to rerouting ships around the red sea due to ships being attacked.

    That’s a pretty substantial downtime for a factory in a single quarter.

    Making a % to % comparison like that and ignoring wtf happened that quarter is senseless.

    Edit: I also think it was the 1st quarter without the incentive on some cars in the USA and that shock takes time to adjust for.

      • @NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        117 months ago

        Yes you don’t normally compare q4 to q1 because cars are seasonal.

        For example, the Chinese new year is in Q1 and always results in fewer cars.

        It should always be comparing the same quarter as the previous year.

        The media often uses this to their advantage to paint good or bad pictures of companies depending on if their masters want someone to look good or bad.

      • @Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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        37 months ago

        You need both and trailing twelve months as well as annualized and probably a few others to get a complete picture. Cars have a lot of seasonality, so you’re absolutely not wrong.

    • @whereisk@lemmy.world
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      87 months ago

      It’s pure and utter nonsense. If that was orthodoxy or even good sense no company would exist. You have no sales as a new company do you have 0 staff or do you need to hire people to build product and make sales before you have ever sold anything? The company sales increase by 10,000% by going from 1 sale to 100 do you increase your workforce by 10,000% too?
      The man’s brain is cheese from the drugs.

  • @drislands@lemmy.world
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    247 months ago

    This is one of the things about businesses I don’t get.

    If you cut your staff, your ability to make money goes down with them. Why would layoffs be the reaction to reduced sales? It’s like they don’t have any money in savings or something.

    Oh wait.

    • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      67 months ago

      They don’t get paid in relation to actual performance. They get paid in stock. Which means they work to the performance of the stock. If you want a well performing company then you should tell your CEO they only get paid in relation to marginal profit. That incentivizes shipping a product that people want or need and bringing in sustainable revenue. Then make it clear that safety violations and mandatory recalls (but not voluntary) are paid for from the CEO’s compensation.

      The entire idea of stock based ownership in companies is a poison pill to capitalism and the economy in general. Owning stock should make you a creditor, nothing more. We can have ownership by contract. Then we can also tax stock without worrying about Elon Musk losing his companies.

  • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    237 months ago

    A fucking genius everyone. This is the guy we’re protecting with domestic EV rebates. This and the “Surely Americans just want giant pickup truck EVs” crowd.

    We deserve to have Chinese companies obliterate our domestic market, just like we deserved the Japanese companies. Maybe if we stopped letting giant corporations form we’d have actual competition and our markets would be harder to break into without the government playing favorites.

  • @penquin@lemm.ee
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    227 months ago

    Is it bad to wish that he just goes under with all of his companies and that he goes bankrupt completely so I don’t have to see his ugly face all over the internet?

    • @root_beer@midwest.social
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      127 months ago

      Not at all, nobody wants to hear what stupid, hateful shit the Boer has been doing for the 2,078th day in a row, and I’d also like to see all the bazingas who line up to huff his farts go with him because they’re utterly insufferable too

    • BruceTwarzen
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      57 months ago

      The sad thing is that he’ll never go under. Imagine he’ll actually lose all his money, like actual 0 dollars on his bank account. He could do the dumbest shit evel like becoming an influencer or livestreamer or just e-begging and his fanboys will shove money up his ass.

  • @jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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    217 months ago

    Maybe if he sends the thinking face emoji to more Nazis he will turn public sentiment around.

  • @psmgx@lemmy.world
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    187 months ago

    Gonna start running into the lump of labor fallacy real soon bud. Once cut that 20 percent ain’t coming back, and finding replacements ain’t simple.