Elon Musk wanted Tesla to slash its headcount by 20% because its quarterly vehicle deliveries fell by that much, Bloomberg source says - eviltoast
Musk told Tesla staff in a memo that the company's "rapid growth" had resulted in "duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas."
  • 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.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    311·
    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.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
      9·
      7 months ago

      Also it’s weird to compare consecutive quarters instead of year-over-year quarters, isn’t it?

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        11·
        7 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
        3·
        7 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
      91·
      7 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.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
      51·
      7 months ago

      A fragile clown gets enraged by a number and takes revenge.