(Boursier.com) — You’re here ended sharply down 9.2% on Friday at $703.55 at the close on Wall Street. Elon Musk, managing director of the electric vehicle manufacturer, who had recently made it clear to his employees that the return to work in person was essential, said this time he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy. At least that’s what Reuters learned, citing an email from the billionaire to Tesla executives. Musk would thus like to cut 10% of the group’s workforce. The email in question is captioned: “Suspend all hiring worldwide”. Tesla currently employs approximately 100,000 people globally.
Musk is not the first boss to warn about the very significant economic risk. Earlier this week, the boss of JP MorganJamie Dimon, said Wednesday that he feared a “hurricane” to come.
Musk’s message about the hiring freeze and expected job cuts comes two days after the world’s richest man told employees to return to work or leave the company. On Tuesday, the businessman had asked his staff to return to the workplace or leave the company, a request that has already been rejected in Germany where the company has a new factory. “Everyone at Tesla is required to spend at least 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in the email. “If you don’t show up, we’ll assume you quit.”
Musk also engaged in a Twitter spat yesterday Thursday with Australian ‘techno’ billionaire and Atlassian Plc co-founder Scott Farquhar, who had mocked the directive in a series of tweets as ‘like something from the 1950s’ . Musk had tweeted, “Recessions serve a vital economic cleaning function,” in response to a tweet from Farquhar that encouraged Tesla employees to lean into his remote workstations.
In late May, in response to a Twitter user asking if the economy was nearing a recession, Musk said yes, adding that it was a “good thing”. “It’s been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies have to happen,” Musk said.
Remember that the billionaire has also embarked on an offensive on the social network Twitter, which it originally planned to buy for $44 billion. Since then, the offer has been suspended until we learn more about the extent of the phenomenon of robots and fake accounts on the social network. The markets anticipate a possible downward revision of the price of the deal, given the sharp drop in the stock markets since the initial announcement.
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