Elon Musk backflips on 10,000 Tesla job cuts after ‘super bad feeling’ on economy

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric car company’s employee headcount “will increase” in the next year — just days after sending employees an email about cuts.

Tesla’s employee headcount will rise over the next year, Elon Musk said Saturday — despite an earlier report that he planned to make cuts at his company over concerns about the economy, the New York Post reports.

“Total headcount will increase, but salaried [sic] should be fairly flat,” Musk tweeted in response to a Twitter account predicting Tesla’s staff would rise over the next 12 months.

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Elon Musk told Tesla employees earlier this week that he has a “super bad feeling” about US economy — so much so that he will need to lay off around 10 per cent of its workforce. Picture: Ryan Lash / TED Conferences, LLC / AFP.

The multibillionaire’s tweet came two days after he told Tesla employees in an email that he has a “super bad feeling” about the state of the US economy, and needed to lay off around 10 per cent of the electric car maker’s workforce, Reuters reported Friday.

Musk’s ominous email came two days after the billionaire told staff to return to the workplace or leave, and adds to a growing chorus of warnings from business leaders about the risks of recession.

Last week, 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 is in for a “rude awakening.” He also said that working from home has made Americans lazy.

When asked by a Twitter user if he thought there would be a recession, Musk replied: “Yes, but this is actually a good thing. It has been raining money on fools for too long.”

He then added: “Some bankruptcies need to happen. Also, all the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard.”

“Rude awakening inbound!”

Tesla employs about 100,000 people, meaning Musk’s earlier email had put 10,000 people’s jobs on the line. Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP

Musk was then asked how long he thought the recession would last.

“Based on past experience, about 12 to 18 months,” the tech mogul replied.

“Companies that are inherently negative cash flow (ie value destroyers) need to die, so that they stop consuming resources.”

Tesla employed almost 100,000 people at the company and its subsidiaries at the end of 2021, according to its annual SEC filing.

The company was not immediately available for comment.

Tesla’s shares closed down 9.2 per cent on Friday.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.