SAN FRANSICO: In a move regarded as intensifying cost-cutting, Tesla has closed its office in San Mateo, California, and put off around 200 staff who were working on its Autopilot driver-assistant system there, one of the persons told Reuters.
According to that source, hourly workers made up the majority of those who were let go.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, informed top managers earlier this month that the company needs to reduce workers by approximately 10% due to the economy’s “very terrible vibe.”
Later, the billionaire claimed that only salaried employees would be affected by the 10% reductions and that the number of hourly employees will continue to rise.
According to Raj Rajkumar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, “Tesla certainly is in a huge cost-cutting mode.” This (employee decrease) most certainly suggests that the firm had a difficult second quarter of 2022 as a result of the Shanghai closure, rising raw material prices, and supply chain issues.
Tesla’s manufacturing in Shanghai has been hindered by anti-pandemic efforts.
Employees at the satellite office had previously been informed that they will transfer to an office in Palo Alto in phases starting this month once the San Mateo lease expired, according to the laid-off source who spoke to Reuters. But on Tuesday, the majority of the employees were let go.
It was undoubtedly numbing, he admitted. Yes, we are absolutely astonished and taken off guard.
Some employees believed that Tesla will transfer some of the jobs to lower-paid employees in Buffalo, New York, in order to save expenses.
A Reuters inquiry for comment received no immediate response from Tesla.
Many employees at Tesla’s San Mateo headquarters are involved in data annotation, which involves going over and identifying various pictures gathered from Tesla vehicles to instruct the Autopilot systems in the cars on how to handle different types of driving situations.
On Tuesday, many Tesla data annotation staffers posted on Linkedin that they had been fired.
