Elon Musk Gets ‘Absolutely Hard’ on Another Round of Tesla Layoffs

Just two weeks after initiating layoffs of at least 14,000 employees, Tesla is now laying off hundreds more — including senior executives and the majority of its Supercharging team.

According to an email first reported by The information and then Electrek, Rebecca Tinucci, the automaker’s senior director of electric vehicle charging, will leave the company on Tuesday, along with most of the 500-person team she oversaw. The head of Tesla’s new vehicle program, Daniel Ho, also left along with his team. These cuts come on top of the recent 10% workforce reduction – and Musk’s email leaves room for more.

In the email sent to executives last night, Musk said he wants Tesla to be “absolutely tough” about the cuts, and that employees working under executives who “obviously don’t pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” will also would be out of a job. While the full scale of these new layoffs is unclear, Bloomberg previously reported that Tesla’s full headcount reduction that began earlier this month could end up being as high as 20 percent of its workforce, or well over 20,000 employees.

Tinucci was notably responsible for launching Tesla’s Supercharger network during his six years at the company, including efforts to get other companies to adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) developed by Tesla. In his email, Musk says that Tesla will still build new Superchargers and complete those already under construction.

Others affected by the new layoffs include Daniel Ho, a ten-year Tesla veteran who served as director of vehicle programs and new product initiatives, and as program manager for the Model S, 3 and Y vehicles. policy department led by former head of policy and business development Rohan Patel (who left the company during the previous wave of layoffs) is also being laid off.