According to reports, Tesla has terminated the employment of about 200 members of its Autopilot team and has closed an office in the state of California. On Tuesday, the corporation reportedly informed its employees of the upcoming change, as reported by Bloomberg.
Annotation specialists made up a large portion of the affected workforce. As part of their jobs, these personnel were responsible for analysing and classifying consumer data collected through Autopilot. In addition to the staff reductions, Tesla shut down its site in San Mateo. According to Bloomberg, the remaining 350 members of the team were relocated to another office in the area.
The request for a comment from Engadget was not immediately met with a response from Tesla. Since the year 2020, the manufacturer has not had a department dedicated to public relations.
It is almost certain that these layoffs are a part of a larger attempt by Tesla CEO Elon Musk to slash costs at the company in preparation for the possibility of a recession. In an email sent to all staff at the beginning of the month of June, Elon Musk informed them that he had a “very awful feeling” about the economy and that layoffs were on the horizon.
He later revealed to Bloomberg that he intended to reduce the number of salaried employees at Tesla by approximately 10 percent over the course of the following three months. Musk made the revelation after he warned employees working from home that they would be fired if they did not return to the workplace.
According to The Information, Tesla’s back-to-office plan was a failure. When many employees returned to the company’s Fremont facility, they discovered that there weren’t enough parking places or desks.
