It was reported that Tesla Inc is looking to hire nearly 800 new employees, three months after chief executive officer Elon Musk hastily ordered the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history.
The roles have steadily popped up on Tesla’s careers page in recent weeks, with positions spanning artificial intelligence specialists to more run-of-the-mill service jobs, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
The pickup in postings has coincided with Tesla shares going on a tear, adding more than US$223 billion in market capitalisation in just the last 14 trading days. The stock marched higher in all but one of those sessions when Bloomberg reported Tesla had decided to postpone the unveiling of robotaxi prototypes. Musk confirmed Monday (July 15) that he’d asked for design changes and that teams working on the vehicle were granted extra time.
While 800 jobs are a far cry from the thousands of positions that Tesla eliminated this year, and publicly listed roles may not give a full picture of the company’s hiring, the new postings provide a glimpse into some of Musk’s priorities for the Austin-based company.
There were only three jobs posted on the site in May after the company missed vehicle sales expectations by the widest margin ever. The 20% sequential drop in quarterly deliveries spurred Musk to push for a commensurate reduction in headcount, Bloomberg reported, which would have meant dismissing roughly 28,000 of the more than 140,000 employees Tesla started the year with. – Bloomberg
