Tesla Inc. is looking to hire nearly 800 new employees, three months after CEO Elon Musk hastily ordered the biggest round of layoffs in the company’s history.
These positions have appeared regularly on Tesla’s career page in recent weeks, with positions ranging from artificial intelligence specialists to more routine service jobs, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
The surge in reporting coincided with a surge in Tesla shares, which have added more than $223 billion to their market cap in the past 14 trading days alone. The stock has been up in all but one of those sessions, when Bloomberg reported that Tesla had decided to delay the unveiling of robotaxi prototypes. Musk confirmed Monday that he had requested design changes and that teams working on the vehicle had been given additional time.
While 800 jobs is a far cry from the thousands of positions Tesla has cut this year, and publicly posted positions may not give a complete picture of the company’s hiring, the new job postings offer a glimpse into some of Musk’s priorities for the Austin-based company.
In May, there were only three openings at the site after the company missed vehicle sales expectations by the largest margin ever. The 20% sequential decline in quarterly deliveries prompted Elon Musk to push for a proportional reduction in the workforce, Bloomberg reported, which would have meant laying off about 28,000 of the more than 140,000 employees Tesla started the year with.
Today, most of the positions the company is looking to fill are in artificial intelligence and robotics for products such as Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus. At least 25 positions are related to the development of autonomous driving, or Autopilot, and at least 30 are focused on Optimus. Tesla is stepping up its long-standing quest for autonomy as it prepares to unveil robotaxi prototypes in October.
The hiring spree also appears to be aimed at bringing back positions where Tesla has cut too many staff, in addition to reflecting Elon Musk’s vision for the company. He has said he now sees Tesla more as an artificial intelligence, robotics and sustainable energy company than an electric vehicle company.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Disruptive potential
The automaker has yet to get regulatory approval to put driverless cars on the road, and its vehicles still aren’t capable of safely maneuvering without constant human supervision. However, many investors believe Tesla will eventually bring the technology to market and have been driving up its stock price in response to Musk’s increasingly optimistic statements.
Tesla’s long-term value will come from self-driving taxis and self-driving software, even if those products aren’t available for a few years, said Tom Narayan, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. Autonomy “is going to disrupt the industry, and that’s enough,” he said.
As Tesla moves toward artificial intelligence and robotics, the company will face stiff competition for top talent, including from other companies in Elon Musk’s empire. The CEO acknowledged in April that the automaker needed to raise salaries to retain people interested in joining his latest startup, xAI, or defecting to OpenAI, which he co-founded but is now taking over after a falling out years ago.
In mid-May, Tesla began showing the first signs of its workforce priorities when it quietly posted 17 positions for its Palo Alto, California, office related to AI and robotics. The number has steadily climbed to about 130 positions as of July 10. The San Francisco-area site is a relatively new location for Tesla, opening as its engineering headquarters last year.
“Musk has been clear about the vision of where they’re going and how important that aspect of the business is,” said Ben Kallo, a Baird analyst who has the equivalent of a buy rating on Tesla shares.
Energy, Service and Sales
Outside of AI, Narayan and Kallo highlighted Tesla’s growing energy storage business as a key area for long-term growth. In announcing its latest quarterly vehicle deliveries this month, the company said it had already deployed nearly as many megawatt-hours of energy storage products in the first half of this year as it will in all of 2023.
Tesla’s careers page lists dozens of energy-related positions in cities like Palo Alto and Lathrop, California, where the company builds its Megapacks, its large-scale batteries. The positions range from engineering positions to jobs related to Megapack and solar product installation.
The company’s customer-facing departments are also looking to renew their workforce. As of July 15, Tesla had 268 service-related positions, including 77 service technicians, far more than any other position or department.
Most of these service positions will likely be filled in Tesla showrooms. The company also announced more than 60 sales and customer support positions.
Mat Fisher, Tesla’s former head of territory operations, who led sales and service teams, said he was surprised to see a large number of service employees laid off before the summer. It’s typically a busy season for service centers, as cars and their air conditioners are used more, leading to more maintenance needs.
Tesla made significant cuts to its sales force earlier this year, at a time when the company was already struggling with declining demand. Musk has said he wants the company’s vehicles to be purchased primarily online and ordered as easily as on Amazon. However, many customers new to electric vehicles still have questions about battery range, charging and software features.
Recharging
The company has rehired part of its Supercharger team, which numbered nearly 500 people and was responsible for developing Tesla’s network of public charging stations. Elon Musk fired nearly the entire department earlier this year.
While only a handful of charging-related job openings have appeared on Tesla’s website for the Buffalo, New York, plant, a number of former employees have been rehired or announced their return on LinkedIn. Musk has said the company will invest another $500 million in charging this year.
Job postings posted in June and July show the company is looking to hire employees at several of its locations, including Palo Alto, Fremont and Lathrop, Calif.; Austin and Robstown, Texas; Sparks, Nev.; and Buffalo. In addition to AI and energy roles, there are also openings in construction and facilities, manufacturing, engineering and supply chain.