By Michael Elkins
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is up 3.4% in pre-market trading Monday as the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, backtracks from earlier statements that the worlds leading electric car maker would be cutting employment by 10%.
"Total headcount will increase, but salaried should be fairly flat," Musk tweeted Saturday, in a reply to an unverified Twitter account that made a "prediction" that Tesla's headcount would increase over the next 12 months.
This follows an email that circulated through Tesla executives, Thursday that stated Musk had a "super bad feeling" about the U.S. economy and needed to cut jobs by about 10%. In another email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla would reduce salaried headcount by 10%, as it has become "overstaffed in many areas." But "hourly headcount will increase," he said.
Tesla's shares sank 9.2% on Friday on the news.
Ahead of his emails on staffing levels, Musk on Wednesday in an email to Tesla employees issued an ultimatum to return to the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week.
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in an email titled “To be super clear.” “Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”