On the heels of cutting staff by 10% just two weeks ago, Tesla has reportedly gutted its Supercharging team by laying off around 500 employees, with the company’s Senior Director of EV Charging Rebecca Tinucci also leaving the company. Tesla also laid off Daniel Ho, who led the new vehicles program and new product initiatives, and his team, as well as most of the public policy team.
Elon Musk said in an email to executives on Tuesday night that Tesla must be “absolutely hard core” after the layoffs, warning that employees working under executives who “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” would also be cut from the payroll. In combining these layoffs with the 10,000 that occurred in recent weeks, the total staff reduction could be up to 20% of employees, or more than 20,000 workers.
Tinucci, who had been with Tesla for six years, oversaw the rollout of Tesla’s Supercharger network and spearheaded efforts to get other EV makers to adopt the North American Charging Standard that Tesla developed. In Musk’s email, he said that the company will still complete Superchargers already under construction and continue to build new ones.
