Ford EV Rival Tesla Lays Off Employees Amid Slowing Demand

Though sales continue to rise, global demand for all-electric vehicles has fallen behind expectations as of late, prompting many automakers to scale back planned investments in that area. This includes Ford, which is not only delaying $12 billion in planned EV investments, but also, pushing back the launch of select models and even pivoting to focus more on hybrids as customers continue to buy them in large quantities. However, Ford’s EV rival Tesla doesn’t have that luxury, and as such, has decided to lay off over 10 percent of its global workforce instead, news that was first uncovered by Electrek.

This news came via an internal Tesla email sent to workers by CEO Elon Musk outlining the company’s decision. “As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10 percent globally,” Musk said in the email. “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”

Musk noted that Tesla has “grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe,” but also pointed out that this rapid growth has resulted in the “duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas,” noting that it “is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.”

Tesla currently employs somewhere around 140,000 workers across the globe, meaning that these cuts will likely come in at roughly 14,000 workers in total. It’s unclear which specific departments might be involved in these cuts as well, though the forthcoming job reduction comes after Tesla missed its delivery estimates and posted a year-over-year sales decrease in Q1 2024.

We’ll have more on everything Ford’s competition is up to soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for continuous Ford news coverage.