Elon Musk suddenly laid off part of Tesla’s workforce. All the competitors are rubbing their hands at the idea of being able to recover qualified personnel.
While Tesla has developed the best network of superchargers in the world, Elon Musk suddenly decided to dismiss almost all of the employees working on the subject, on May 1, 2024. The decision appears somewhat irrational, given the work accomplished by this team dedicated to superchargers in recent years.
According to Reuters, experts and Tesla’s main competitors are surprised by such a turnaround. Tesla’s charging team is one of the units that were valued a few months earlier for their performance: the network has developed, it works efficiently, new terminals are arriving, Tesla has convinced the various American manufacturers to adopt the NACS socket specific to superchargers. The situation therefore absolutely does not seem to justify a massive layoff.
However, all this could benefit certain charging operators. They do not hesitate to explicitly indicate that former Tesla employees are welcome in their workforce.
500 employees of Tesla’s “supercharger” team laid off
A first wave of layoffs affected just over 10% of Tesla employees worldwide on April 15. Elon Musk is still continuing his reorganization of the company to “reduce costs”, including cuts in services that seem to be working well.
According to indiscretions collected by Electrek on May 1, the director of the charging service at Tesla, Rebecca Tinucci, would have opposed Elon Musk’s decision to lay off part of his team during the first wave. Sources indicate that the manager and the entire team were fired in retaliation.
Elon Musk even released an internal memo afterwards: “ It is hoped that these actions make it clear that we must be absolutely uncompromising when it comes to cutting staff and costs. While some members of the executive branch are taking this issue seriously, most are not yet doing so. » In other words, those who oppose workforce reductions will pay the consequences. However, all this threatens the future smooth functioning of Tesla. Qualified employees don’t grow on trees.
Competitors welcome Tesla employees with open arms
My competitors now dream of being able to welcome these recently dismissed employees, which shows that Tesla has certainly made a strategic error. In recent days, many competing companies have made a golden bridge to the former employees of this team, who have extremely valuable know-how.
In Europe, charging operators like Electra, Driveco and others do not hesitate to launch invitations on LinkedIn. It is unlikely that these offers will attract the employees concerned. But this opportunism is easily explained: charging operators struggle to find qualified profiles to join their teams. So when Tesla wastes valuable resources, they try to profit from it.
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