On Monday, Tesla announced that it will be laying off more than 10 percent of its employees worldwide. The company had over 140,000 employees at the end of last year, and some affected employees reportedly found out they were fired when their access card no longer worked. CEO Elon Musk acknowledged that some of the severance packages given to dismissed employees were mistakenly too low and apologized for the error. This rare show of remorse from Musk comes after former employees sued him over severance pay discrepancies in March. Four former Twitter employees sued Musk for over $128 million in compensation after he acquired the company and renamed it X.
As Musk works to address the issue with severance pay, the company continues to navigate through restructuring and layoffs. It remains to be seen how Tesla will handle the aftermath of the layoffs and address the concerns raised by affected employees. The company has not yet disclosed how many employees were affected by the low severance packages or how much money was involved in the settlements with former Twitter employees. However, it is clear that this is a major setback for Tesla, which has been facing challenges in recent months due to supply chain issues and competition from other electric vehicle manufacturers.