No, Tesla Is Not Freezing Hiring: Company Still Taking On Hourly Workers And Focusing On These 3 Areas

News of electric vehicle giant Tesla Inc TSLA cutting jobs has been widely covered by the media this week. Here’s a look at updates from the company including how the hiring freeze reports could be inaccurate.

What Happened: Tesla CEO Elon Musk told executives of the company that job cuts of 10% at Tesla need to happen due to a “super bad feeling” about the economy. The email cited a hiring freeze happening for the company.

Another email from Musk sent to employees said that it would be 10% of salaried employees getting cut due to overstaffing in certain areas of the company, as reported by Reuters. 

Musk also said that “hourly headcount will increase,” which hit back at comments on a hiring freeze.

The Tesla CEO also singled out three areas of the company that would not see job cuts.

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

Related Link: Tesla Q1 Earnings Highlights: Electric Vehicle Maker Hits Record Revenue, Deliveries, Profits And Margins Amid Headwinds

Why It’s Important: Whole Mars Blog took to Twitter Inc TWTR to share insight into the job cuts and hiring by Tesla.

“This is more or less standard operating procedure for Tesla. Tesla’s headcount is much bigger than it was a year ago, and next year it’ll be bigger than today. This is healthy,” Whole Mars tweeted.

At the end of 2021, Tesla employed around 100,000 people.

The Future Fund co-founder and managing partner Gary Black hit out at inaccuracies in the reports on Tesla and Musk’s emails.

“Probably 60% of TSLA’s 100k workers are Mfg/AI/FSD which are off-limits. So maybe 4-5% of workers will exit. Media also ignoring last line that ‘hourly headcount will increase’ which means production will rise,” Black tweeted.

President Joe Biden criticized comments from Musk on the economy and also singled out the job cuts proposed by the CEO. In his comments, Biden mentioned several other automotive companies such as Ford Motor Company F who are hiring employees.

TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares are down 0.06% to $704.80 on Friday afternoon at publication.

Photo: Courtesy Tesla Inc.