Tesla CEO Elon Musk lays off senior executives in fresh job cuts

EV giant Tesla CEO Elon Musk has removed two senior executives and plans to further lay off hundreds more employees amidst falling sales, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing the CEO's email to senior managers.

Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of the electric vehicle maker's Supercharger business, and Daniel Ho, head of the new vehicles program have been laid off, the report said.

Musk also plans to dismiss everyone working for Tinucci and Ho, including the roughly 500 employees who work in the Supercharger group, it said. It was not clear how many employees worked for Ho.

Ho joined Tesla in 2013 and was a program manager in the development of the Model S, the 3, and the Y before being put in charge of all new vehicles, while Tinucci joined in 2018 as a senior product manager, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

The move comes after Musk visited China on an unannounced visit where he received permissions to rollout its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software and the data-transfer permissions.

Tesla's public policy team, which was led by former executive Rohan Patel, will also be dissolved, according to the report.

"Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," Musk wrote in the email, the report said. “While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.” Tesla, had 140,473 employees globally as of end-2023.

Earlier this month, Tesla ordered layoffs of more than 10% of its global workforce amid falling sales and an intensifying price war for electric vehicles (EVs). Two senior leaders, battery development chief Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel also announced that they were leaving the company.

Tesla has been reportedly grappling with falling sales and an intensifying price war leading to its quarterly revenue falling for the first time since 2020, the company reported last week.