- Tesla’s latest round of job cuts came on the evening of Sunday, May 5.
- That makes this the fourth straight week of layoffs at the electric vehicle manufacturer.
- The cuts has left remaining employees on edge, as they await the return of job security.
Another week, another round of Tesla layoffs, as yet more employees report receiving letters of termination. Just the latest example of the automaker shrinking its head count, employees are on edge after four straight weeks of cuts.
The layoffs appear to have started on Sunday night, and employees quickly took to LinkedIn to share their stories, including Cheryl Cai, a UX Designer who previously worked at Apple. Although she described herself as an “eternal optimist” she relayed the feeling of imminent doom that she experienced in the weeks leading up to being laid off.
Read: What Is Tesla Doing With $17M In Federal Charging Grants After Firing Supercharger Team?
“After watching my team gradually slimmed down week after week since mid-April, I received the dreaded ‘Hello Employee’ email this Sunday afternoon,” wrote Cai. “I’ve become just another statistic in yet another round of mass layoffs.“
Employees report feeling on edge as the layoffs keep being announced. Initially, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the cuts were due to a “duplication of roles and job functions,” but since then, the company’s entire Supercharger team was let go, and employees have discovered that they were unemployed only after their key cards failed to provide them access into their former workplaces.
“I keep waiting for Elon to send another email and tell us they’re finally done firing people,” another employee told Business Insider. “We need some level of closure or a sign that we can stop worrying about losing our jobs.”
In addition, Tesla has also lost at least six executives, including Drew Baglino, its senior vice president of powertrain and electrical engineering, Rohan Patel, its VP of public policy and business development, and Allie Arebalo, its head of HR. In the case of the former two, the high-ranking employees said they left the company, but the circumstances surrounding Arebalo’s departure remain unclear.
Tesla is working aggressively to cut costs following a tough start to the year. The automaker underperformed in Q1, and its share prices are down 26 percent so far this year as increasing competition in China and in other markets threaten its dominance in the EV market.