Tesla’s layoffs add to the narrative of being a car company dealing with a slowdown. Yet its stock doesn't reflect this.
CEO Elon Musk informed the ranks this weekend that more than 14 000 of them — based on year-end 2023 figures — would be leaving the electric vehicle manufacturer forthwith. The announcement is one part regret, three parts optimism. Okay, that last bit isn’t very car company-like. It is Tesla-like. After the debacle of quarterly sales figures earlier this month that missed by a mile and then the bizarre drama of a Reuters report that Tesla had, sort of — Musk announced a forthcoming robo-taxi reveal. Whatever ends up getting unveiled in August, the sense of Tesla seeking to reframe the story around expansive visions of AI, rather than the current reality of shrinking volumes of vehicles, is palpable.