Tesla’s Elon Musk is catching more hell over the latest bit of news — 10% job cuts, a hiring pause — and, as usual, it’s being taken way out of context. Yahoo! News reported that U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh wanted Elon to call him, as “Tesla CEO eyes mass layoffs” (Yahoo!‘s phrasing, not Walsh’s.) According to the article Walsh said:
“I had a conversation with Mr. Musk about two months ago.
“I would love to follow back up with him about what more we can do as a government. Quite honestly, this is not just a government response. This is a business response as well [as a response to] where we are headed with the economy.
“Certainly Elon Musk is a very smart person and he is looking at where he is in the economy, where the company is.
“I am hopeful that won’t happen out there. I am hopeful as we continue to move forward we will continue to see our economy get stronger.”
Reuters initially reported that Elon Musk “feels ‘super bad’” about the economy and needed to cut 10% of its salaried staff.
What isn’t being reported, as far as I was able to tell so far, was that Elon Musk said, “Note, this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs, or installing solar. Hourly headcount will increase.”
You can thank @WholeMarsBlog for sharing a screenshot of the actual email.