Elon Musk’s Tesla struggling after leaked email reveals company endured ‘very tough quarter’

The world’s richest man could be in for a rough ride with his lucrative business experiencing a “very tough” time, according to a leaked email.

The world’s richest man could be in for a rough ride, according to a leaked internal memo.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had sent a company-wide email warning staff that his company had experienced a “very tough quarter”.

The billionaire sent in an email to Tesla employees over the weekend, “This has been a very tough quarter, primarily due to supply chain and production challenges in China.

“So we need to rally hard to recover!”

Mr Musk cited supply chain issues sparked by Covid-19 as cause for concern for the company’s ongoing success.

It comes just a week after the boss sent another warning about the state of the company to executives.

Elon Musk’s company isn’t immune to the economic downturn facing the rest of the world. Picture: Patrick Pleul/AFP

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Mr Musk had admitted to a “super bad feeling” about the state of the US and global economy.

He reportedly told them to “pause all hiring worldwide”.

The entrepreneur also advised his executives to start cutting about 10 per cent of their staff paid on a salary because Tesla was “overstaffed in many areas.”

However, casual employees would still be hired, with Musk writing that “hourly headcount will increase,” according to Reuters.

“Note, this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs or installing solar,” he added.

Tesla has lost nearly half of its peak selling price in the space of eight months. Picture: Kena Betancur/AFP

It’s not the only controversial internal memo the CEO has sent in the last few days.

The billionaire also told staff to return to the workplace or leave, and added to a growing chorus of warnings from business leaders about the risks of recession.

Earlier in June, Musk tweeted that he believed it would be beneficial for the US economy to go into a recession and that “some bankruptcies need to happen”.

Tesla’s billionaire boss said the domestic economy was in for a “rude awakening.” He also said that working from home has made Americans lazy.

Like many tech companies, Tesla has been struggling in recent weeks amid sky-high inflation, panicked investors and the ongoing supply chain crisis.

Tesla has shed almost half its value since its November 2021 peak, in what has been a horror few months for the company.

For a brief moment in time, the company’s founder and CEO Elon Musk himself had a net worth that surpassed $US300 billion ($A423 billion), making him the first person in the history of the world to reach that level of wealth.

Now, however, Musk has a net worth of almost half that, at $US203 billion ($A291 billion) at time of writing, corresponding with Tesla going down in value by around 45 per cent over the last six months.