Tesla is one of the most famous automobile companies on the planet. It is best known for both its superior electric vehicles and its often controversial leader, Elon Musk.
In April 2024, Musk made yet another surprising decision: He fired nearly 500 employees within the Tesla Supercharging team, including the director of charging for North America. But now, less than a month later, Musk has hired many of them back.
Tesla’s Fires 500 on Supercharging Team
On April 30, 2024, Tesla announced that it was laying off about 500 employees in its Supercharging sector. Several of the employees who lost their jobs had worked at Tesla for more than ten years, including the team’s director, Max de Zegher.
The proclamation explained that existing members of the team would focus on finishing charging stations under construction and build a few “critical” new ones.
Musk Had Promised the World Supercharging Stations
Tesla employs over 140,000 people, but that doesn’t mean the laying off of 500 employees wasn’t inconsequential. The Supercharging team is not only quite a bit smaller than many of its other sectors, but it’s also an absolutely essential aspect of the business.
Musk has made it his personal mission to ensure the United States, as well as many other countries in Asia and around the world, were prepared to go electric by offering to install charging stations wherever necessary. He even made several deals over the past couple of years that promised other automotive companies that their customers could use Tesla stations to charge their electric vehicles.
Experts Were Shocked by the Decision to Let 500 Employees Go
Because of these promises and Musk’s constant comments that he and Tesla would provide the world with the charging stations it needed, some financial experts were shocked by the CEO’s decision to let go such a significant percentage of the team that was working on doing just that.
However, one only has to look at Musk’s history to understand that he often makes rash and sweeping decisions like this one.
Elon Musk Is Not a Good Boss
As the CEO of Tesla, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, the owner and executive chairman of X, formerly Twitter, and the co-founder of Neuralink and Open AI, Elon Musk is undoubtedly a successful businessman.
However, the uber-famous billionaire is not known for his patience, caution or prudent decisions. In fact, he has quite a reputation as a bad boss, mostly because of his impulsive, out-of-nowhere firings.
Musk’s History of Firing Hundreds of Employees at a Time
In 2019, Musk announced that Tesla was planning to close most of its stores to shift sales online. The decision, of course, would have meant thousands of layoffs across Tesla’s 245 dealerships within the United States, and employees were extremely nervous they were about to lose their jobs.
But just ten days later, Musk retracted his statement. Instead of firing thousands of people, Musk announced that they would instead be raising the prices of their electric vehicles.
Musk Did the Same Thing at X in 2022
In late 2022, Elon Musk purchased the popular social media platform Twitter and almost immediately announced that he would be laying off nearly half the existing staff.
But only weeks after the announcement, Musk was begging hundreds of the thousands of employees he fired to come back and work for him. Once again, showing the businessman’s incredible impulsivity and almost constant backtracking.
Musk Has Since Rehired Many of the 500 Supercharging Employees He Fired in April
Like in 2019 and 2022, Musk announced during the first week of May 2024 that he would rehire many of the employees he fired only weeks before.
Because of Musk’s history, the announcement wasn’t all that surprising. However, some argue that the CEO was essentially forced to backtrack as he received extensive backlash for the decision from investors, other automobile manufacturers and his own employees.
Tesla Has Yet to Announce Who Has Their Job Back
Although the public has been informed that at least some of the Supercharging team have been rehired, they don’t know who or exactly how many.
Neither Musk nor the director of charging for North America, Max de Zegher, have responded to the press to comment on the situation. But Musk made another contradictory announcement regarding the team’s current budget.
Musk Has Also Promised to Spend $500 Million on Adding More Supercharging Stations
When Musk told the world that he was firing some 500 employees on the Supercharging team, he also explained that they would be cutting back on building new charging stations.
But then, less than two weeks later, he suddenly posted on X, “Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year. That’s just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher.”
Tesla Charging Thanks Everyone for Their ‘Patience’
The same day that Musk announced that Tesla’s Supercharging team was not only rehiring the recently fired employees but also apparently spending half a billion dollars on new charging stations, Tesla Charging made its own proclamation.
Tesla Charging wrote, “Thank you to site hosts & suppliers for your patience as we restructure internally!” Though the “restructuring” has yet to be explained, it certainly makes it seem like Musk’s contradictory decisions were all part of his “plan.”
Will Tesla Raise the Prices of Its Cars Again?
Usually, when Musk announces layoffs and then backtracks and hires everyone back, it means that Tesla’s prices will go up in the very near future.
So, while Musk hasn’t said so just yet, it’s highly likely that a new Tesla will cost a lot more by the end of 2024 than it does now. As Musk would probably say, if he has to spend more, customers have to spend more.
