AUSTIN, TX – Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and the world’s richest man, has stated that he has a “super bad feeling” about the U.S. economy and in response, intends to cut approximately 10 percent of the jobs at his electric car manufacturing company from his 100,000-strong workforce – which would equate to 10,000 jobs – according to an email he sent to company executives on Thursday.
The email – sent with the subject line “pause all hiring worldwide” – comes during a spike in U.S. inflation that has reached a 40-year high, greatly increasing the cost of living of Americans while the threat of a recession looms.
Based upon Musk’s gloomy prediction for the economy and his announcement of job cuts, Tesla shares dropped almost 4 percent in premarket trading Thursday, which had the consequence of lowering Nasdaq 100 futures approximately half a percentage point.
However, Musk has seemed undaunted by the idea that the U.S. economy could enter a recession in the near future; in May, when asked by a Twitter user whether the economy was approaching a recession, Musk replied in the positive, but stressed that it’s something that may actually need to happen.
“Yes, but this is actually a good thing. It has been raining money on fools for too long,” he said. “Some bankruptcies need to happen.”
Musk continued this narrative by claiming on Thursday that a recession could “serve a vital economic cleansing function” in response to a tweet by Australia tech billionaire and Atlassian (TEAM) co-founder Scott Farquhar, who criticized the South African tech tycoon’s decision earlier in the week to end remote work for his employees.
On Tuesday, Musk had raised eyebrows with another company email that declared all Tesla employees – many who, along with many workers in numerous industries had adopted a remote working schedule during the pandemic – were now required to resume working full-time in the office or face being fired.
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk said on Tuesday. “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”
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