Tesla on recharge mode, on a hiring spree after Elon Musk ordered mass layoffs

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 $223 billion in market capitalization 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 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 vehicles 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.

Now, many of the openings the company is looking to fill focus on AI and robotics for products including Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus. There are at least 25 jobs related to self-driving development or Autopilot, and at least 30 focused on Optimus. Tesla is reinforcing its years-long pursuit of autonomy as it prepares to unveil the robotaxi prototypes in October.

The hiring spree also appears aimed at adding personnel back to areas where Tesla cut too deeply, in addition to reflecting Musk’s vision for the company. He’s said he now views Tesla as more of an AI, robotics and sustainable energy company than an EV company.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Disruptive Potential

The carmaker doesn’t yet have regulatory approval to put driverless cars on the road, and its vehicles still aren’t capable of safely maneuvering without constant human supervision. However, many investors believe Tesla will ultimately bring the technology to market and have bid up its share price alongside Musk’s increasingly bullish claims.

Tesla’s long-term value will be derived from autonomous taxis and self-driving software, even if those products are years away, said Tom Narayan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Autonomy is “going to disrupt the industry, and that’s enough," he said.

In hiring related to Tesla’s AI and robotics ambitions, the company will have plenty of competition for the best candidates — including from other companies within Musk’s empire. The CEO acknowledged in April that the carmaker was having to boost pay to retain people interested in jumping to his latest startup, xAI, or defecting for OpenAI, which he co-founded but is now taking on after a falling-out years ago.

In mid-May, Tesla began to show the first hints of its workforce priorities when it quietly posted 17 roles for its Palo Alto, California, office related to AI and robotics. That number steadily climbed to about 130 positions on July 10. The San Francisco-area site is a relatively new location for Tesla, and opened as an engineering headquarters last year.

“Musk has been clear with the vision of where they’re going and how important that aspect of the business has been," said Ben Kallo, a Baird analyst who has the equivalent of a buy rating on Tesla shares.

Energy, Service and Sales

Outside of AI, Narayan and Kallo pointed to Tesla’s rapidly expanding energy-storage business as a key long-term growth area. When announcing its latest quarterly vehicle deliveries this month, the company said it already deployed nearly as many megawatt hours’ worth of energy-storage products in the first half of this year as it did in all of 2023.

Tesla’s careers page lists several dozen energy-related positions in cities including Palo Alto and in Lathrop, California, where the company builds out Megapacks, its large-scale batteries. The roles range from engineering positions to jobs related to installing Megapacks and solar products.

The company’s customer-facing departments also are looking to replenish their staff. On July 15, Tesla had 268 service-related roles listed, including 77 service technicians, far exceeding any other position or department.

Many of these service positions will likely operate out of Tesla showrooms. The company has also posted more than 60 sales and customer-support positions.

Mat Fisher, a former territory operations leader for Tesla who led sales and service teams, said he’d been surprised to see a large number of service employees laid off before summer. That’s typically a busy season for service centers, as cars and their air conditioners are used more, leading to more maintenance needs.

Tesla made significant cuts to its sales staff earlier this year, at a time it was already struggling with slipping demand. Musk has said he wants the company’s vehicles to mostly be purchased online and ordered as easily as snapping up items off Amazon. However, many customers new to EVs still have questions about battery range, charging and software features.

Recharging

The company has hired back some of its once nearly 500-person Supercharger organization, which had been building out Tesla’s network of public charging stations. Musk gutted almost the entire department earlier this year.

While only a handful of charging-related positions have appeared on Tesla’s website for the company’s facility in Buffalo, New York, a number of former employees have been hired back or announced their return on LinkedIn. Musk has said the company will still invest over $500 million in the charging business this year.

Job postings in June and July show the company is looking to add employees in a number of its locations, including Palo Alto, Fremont and Lathrop, California; Austin and Robstown, Texas; Sparks, Nevada; and Buffalo. Besides the AI and energy roles, there are also positions available in construction and facilities, manufacturing, engineering and supply chain.

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