Elon Musk’s Tesla Bait-and-Switch Is Getting Old
The EV company keeps pushing its “next phase of growth” message, but it’s getting harder to look past a slump in vehicle sales and its unexciting lineup.
Looking for that next phase of growth.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
In case you didn’t know that Tesla Inc. is on the cusp of a new wave of growth, it is now slashing its workforce by more than one-in-ten. It’s all there in the memo.
Chief Executive Elon Musk informed the ranks this weekend that more than 14,000 of them — based on year-end 2023 figures — would be leaving the electric vehicle manufacturer forthwith. The announcement is one part regret, three parts optimism. The phrase “next phase of growth” appears up top and in the kicker, with a derivative of it somewhere in the middle, too. This is all quite normal corporate stuff: Companies doing big layoffs must emphasize the leaner, fitter organism that will emerge. But this is Tesla at an interesting moment in its development, so the context matters.