When Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an internal memo regarding laying off “more than 10%” of his employees, he wasn’t messing around. “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth cycle," Musk wrote in the email.
Shortly after the company announced dismissing some 20,000 employees worldwide, a hiring freeze went into effect. Tesla’s careers page which normally shows thousands of open positions went nearly blank, with just three training program listings.
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Tesla's next chapter.
CEO Elon Musk's ambitions for Tesla go far beyond making the world's best electric cars. He wants to solve autonomy and pioneer artificial intelligence and robotaxis. After laying off some 20,000 people worldwide to reduce costs and restructure, Tesla is hiring again.
As the Austin-headquartered company prepares for a future of robotaxis and artificial intelligence alongside its passenger vehicle business, hundreds of those jobs are open again. Service advisors and service technicians make up the majority of the open positions on Tesla’s careers page.
It’s also hiring chemical operators for its in-house lithium refinery located in the greater Corpus Christi area of Texas. A closer look at some of the battery jobs reveals that Tesla is pushing ahead with the development of cells. Several research and development positions are open across “cell materials engineering,” “abuse test and engineering” and “high-voltage abuse test” among other similar roles.
There are also dozens of well-paying positions at Tesla Bot, the automaker’s artificial intelligence and robotics division in charge of fine-tuning the Full-Self Driving (FSD) software and improving the capabilities of its humanoid robots. Positions are also open across manufacturing, legal, operations, software, and more.
However, at the time of publishing, there were no roles open within the charging divisions. The majority of the 500-person Supercharger team that helped build the backbone of Tesla, was also part of the layoffs in April and May. Some of those employees have since been re-hired.
If the company wants to solve autonomy and trigger the next wave of growth—which has been in decline since the start of this year—it needs a lot of these talented people by its side.