The electric car company Tesla is cutting roughly 9 percent of its employees to lower costs while trying to increase production of the Model 3 sedan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tuesday.
Musk tweeted pictures of company-wide email he sent explaining the news to his employees. He claimed the email had already been leaked to the press.
Difficult, but necessary Tesla reorg underway. My email to the company has already leaked to media. Here it is unfiltered: pic.twitter.com/4LToWoxScx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 12, 2018
Tesla is cutting positions and reorganizing to streamline responsibilities and eliminate redundancies, according to the email. The positions cut are not from production associates and should not affect Tesla’s ability to produce its Model 3.
“Given that Tesla has never made an annual profit in the almost 15 years since we have existed, profit is obviously not what motivates us,” Musk said in the email. “What drives us is our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable, clean energy, but we will never achieve that mission unless we eventually demonstrate that we can be sustainably profitable.” (RELATED: Elon Musk Keeps Insisting Tesla Will Be Profitable One Day)
After continuously falling behind and missing production goals, Musk has set his latest mark at hitting 5,000 Model 3s a week by the end of June 2018. Musk claimed in a shareholder meeting on June 5 that the company was on track to meet its goal, producing 3,500 cars a week at the time, The Verge reports.
Musk may be overstating his numbers. Bloomberg has built its own tracker, determining the level of production by scouring and recording Model 3 Vehicle Identification Numbers. Bloomberg places Tesla’s production level at just under 3,000-a-week.
“I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years,” Musk wrote. “In order to minimize the impact, Tesla is providing significant salary and stock vesting (proportionate to length of service) to those we are letting go.”
Tesla employed 37,543 people at the time of its last filing in December, Reuters reports.
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