from Hacker News

Tesla to lay off more than 10% of its staff

by draugadrotten on 4/15/24, 10:06 AM with 324 comments

  • by thecupisblue on 4/15/24, 10:52 AM

    Seems like another way to avoid the death spiral trap Elon has set up for himself.

    - Bought Twitter with Tesla stock as collateral

    - Tesla faces falling EV sales and external competition

    - Unionisation pressures, declining product quality, Elon losing his reach and audience's good graces

    - Stock price falling too low can trigger a margin call on his loans

    - Starts actual marketing, price cuts

    - Price cuts chew into profits, stock falls

    - Announces "real FSD" for 100th time

    - Announces "robotaxis"

    - Layoffs happening

    While this might end up with a small bump in the price to avoid the margin calls, it might also end up being part of a downward spiral for Tesla in the end, depending on where and what they are cutting.

    It would be unfortunate to see Tesla crash after everything due to his wish to buy Twitter and I think we might see him ousted in the following year or so. Before it was "Elon is Tesla's marketing driver so we can't kick him out", nowadays it seems way less so with him being more of a detractor.

  • by ineedaj0b on 4/15/24, 10:38 AM

    The coming Chinese EV storm will cause Tesla to struggle. All car manufacturers will struggle.

    I wonder if the Chinese will pull a Toyota (high quality, and cheap) or if they’ll end up being a different flavor

  • by londons_explore on 4/15/24, 10:18 AM

    I wonder if the CEO will be amongst the layoffs...

  • by GardenLetter27 on 4/15/24, 10:36 AM

    It's a shame, it feels like we're moving backwards in some ways. Like in Europe, Tesla sales are down and we are introducing huge tariffs on electric vehicles from China, meanwhile the German Greens are happy pushing for more coal and lignite burning (since they opposed nuclear power, and now Russian gas).

    It's hard to believe that the self-driving tech will develop well at this rate.

  • by paxys on 4/15/24, 1:27 PM

    Robo taxi announcement didn't pump the stock as much as expected?

  • by nova22033 on 4/15/24, 3:22 PM

    If this had happened to a company on the other side of the culture war, Elon would have responded with "Go woke, go broke"

    https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aelonmusk%20woke%20broke&...

    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770118906318856513

    https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1768713092693721230

  • by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 4/15/24, 7:41 PM

  • by tmellon2 on 4/17/24, 4:23 PM

    Could Elon pay the 10 % of his staff by taking a personal paycut from 56 Billion to One Billion USD ?

  • by throwaway63467 on 4/15/24, 11:21 AM

    Electric car market seems to have shifted somehow, even seems we’re seeing some backtracking regarding ICE cars as demand for EVs seems a bit stagnant. I’m still holding out, luckily I don’t need a car as buying an EV seems like a great way to burn money now (but I guess that applies to new cars in general, prices are ridiculous).

  • by mavhc on 4/15/24, 12:13 PM

    Is this different to the 2017 700 job cuts, or the 2018 9% job cuts, or the 2019 7% job cuts, or the 2022 10% job cuts?

  • by davidguetta on 4/15/24, 11:27 AM

    Why are layoffs always seen in a bad light.

    Sometimes what you need is to trim the fat.

  • by anothernewdude on 4/15/24, 10:47 AM

    Silly. They're cash rich and have skilled staff. If they can't do anything with that 10% they should quit business all together.