Tesla job cuts: Elon Musk would like to be a visionary

He would like to be a visionary

The boss of Tesla wants to be special and save the world. But the current layoffs are not innovative or a long-term strategy.

Jürgen Schmieder from Los Angeles

Posted: April 16, 2024, 9:23 pm

Elon Musk, where he feels most comfortable: Center – here at Saturday’s Breakthrough Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

Photo: AP

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If you had to describe Elon Musk in just one word, “special” would be the perfect word. He wants to be special, and he wants people to recognize him as such: as a visionary who started a revolution in sustainable passenger transport with the electric car manufacturer Tesla. Who has revolutionized space travel with reusable rockets from his company Space-X. Who is both an opportunity spotter and the voice of reason when it comes to artificial intelligence. He’s not afraid to be controversial, something he’s proven almost every day on social media since he bought Twitter (now X).

The best explanation perhaps comes from Sam Altman, head of the AI company Open AI: “He really wants to save the world – but only if he’s the one to save it.”

It has always been Musk’s greatest strength to explain the ordinary and the special, for example turning the hellish design of car manufacturing into a puzzle and replacing layoffs as part of a long-term strategy. American electric car manufacturer Tesla is now cutting more than one in ten jobs worldwide.

Musk thinks unions are free

Musk wants to change, that’s why he sees unions as unnecessary as an attachment: there is no use, it hurts you more often, it can be dangerous and you should get rid of it. The principle of hire-and-fire, rapid turnover of personnel, is a “feature” and not a “bug” in Tesla, i.e. not a fault, but an intended function.

“Every five years we have to reorganize and adjust the company for the next phase of growth,” writes Musk: “This will make us lean, innovative and hungry.” What else should he write? That’s the answer poor sales figures is it? Instead of being in production hell, the company is in demand hell: Tesla built 46,561 cars last year – and didn’t produce them.

“He has this great hero”

Musk’s greatest strength was to inspire people with something special – with something that was worth sacrificing for. He is passionate about the role of moving humanity to Mars, enabling sustainable travel and making artificial intelligence as safe as possible for people. He wants to be loved for being special. Biographer Walter Isaacson says: “He has this great hero, but he knows it and he jokes about it.”

If there is one thing that Musk needs to read about himself, it is this: the measures that Tesla has responded to so far with sales and quarterly figures – such as price cuts, months of free trials for the self-driving program and now a ten percent discount. of workers – they don’t really have a vision. This is also evidenced by the simultaneous departure of long-time general managers Rohan Patel and Drew Baglino. Political director Patel had been there for 7 years and technical director Baglino had been with the group for 18 years. High turnover and investor reaction – the stock lost 5 percent of its value on Monday, since the beginning of the year it has been more than 32 percent – show that the move is one thing: very normal and not particularly good news for Tesla in the medium term.

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