Elon Musk, the CEO of car company Tesla, says he has ‘a very bad feeling’ about the economic situation. In an internal email, he announces a hiring freeze, saying it is necessary to cut the workforce by “roughly 10 percent.”
Remarkably, Musk bases his decision on “the super bad feeling” he has about the global economy, he says in the email. He also believes that recruitment at Tesla should be paused.
The leak of the email sent Tesla shares sharply lower on Friday. After half a day of trading, it already lost more than 8 percent.
The manufacturer of electric cars employs about 99,290 people worldwide. The company has plants in the United States, China and Berlin, where a total of 930,422 cars were produced last year. No one was available Friday to comment on any restructuring plans.
Musk made headlines this week with a striking plea to abolish telecommuting at Tesla. He believes that employees must be in the office at least 40 hours a week.
Other top executives such as Jamie Dimon of the American investment bank JPMorgan Chase have also sounded the alarm about the state of the economy. He warned investors this week of “an economic hurricane”.