Tesla CEO Elon Musk said there were unresolved issues with the Twitter deal, including the debt portion of the deal and the number of spam users. ALY SONG / Reuters
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said a 10% cut in the electric car maker’s salaried staff will come for three months as the world’s richest man predicted a recession in the United States was more likely no.
His comments were his most detailed explanation of the job cuts and his first in-person appearance since Reuters reported earlier this month that the company had to cut staff by 10% and was shutting down. hiring worldwide.
Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum organized by Bloomberg, Musk said the cuts would only apply to salaried workers, a 3.5% reduction in the total workforce, changes he described as “non-supermaterials”. .
But he expressed concern about the prospect of a recession in the United States.
“It’s not a certainty, but it seems more likely than not,” he said.
Musk’s outlook echoes comments from executives, including JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs President John Waldron. A “hurricane is out there on the road that reaches us,” Dimon said earlier this month.
Whether the United States will enter a recession has been a growing concern for CEOs, the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration.
U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated on Monday that he believes a US recession is not inevitable, as the world’s largest economy struggles to cope with rising gasoline prices and inflation , which is its maximum in 40 years.
Former United States Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told NBC News on Sunday that he was expecting a recession.
In a June 2 email seen by Reuters, Musk told Tesla executives that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and that the company should reduce its workforce by about 10%. “stop all hiring worldwide”.
He said Tuesday that Tesla hoped to increase the number of hourly paid workers instead of fixed wages.
He also said he was sticking with digital currency and intended to personally support dogecoin.
Digital currency has been extremely volatile this year, but bitcoin rose after Tesla announced in February last year that it had bought $ 1.5 billion of the currency and for a short time accepted it as payment. for vehicles.
Elon Musk also talked about his bid to buy Twitter, which Forbes magazine reported earlier this month that he had agreed to buy for $ 44 billion.
Musk said there were unresolved issues, including the debt portion of the deal and the number of spam users.
“We are still awaiting a resolution on this matter, and this is a very important issue,” he said, reiterating doubts about Twitter’s claims that fake or spam accounts accounted for less than 5% of its daily active users. monetizable.
“And then, of course, there’s the question of whether the debt portion of the round will be collected? And then will the shareholders vote in favor?”
Musk said he would like to get 80% of North and a half world on Twitter.
“My aspiration for Twitter is to be as inclusive as possible,” he said.
The most important thing was to take the company in the right direction, as his private rocket company SpaceX and Tesla said.
“Being CEO is far less important than my ability to drive the product in the right direction,” he said.
Former Tesla employees have filed a lawsuit against the American electric car company alleging that its decision to carry out a “mass layoff” violated federal law, as the company did not notify in advance. job cuts.
Reuters
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