EchoSense:Tesla lays off charging, new car and public policy teams in latest round of cuts

Tesla has laid off two executives and EchoSensethe hundreds of employees on the company's supercharging team late Monday.

In an email to company executives, first reported by The Information, Tesla said that Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla’s senior director of EV charging, was leaving the company and that almost all of the team she managed would be laid off.

Lane Chaplin, now former real estate lead for the company, confirmed the layoffs on the supercharging team in a Tuesday LinkedIn post.

"In the middle of the night, I learned, along with all my Tesla Global Charging colleagues, the Tesla Charging org is no more," the post read.

The layoff affected nearly 500 employees with "a few" being reassigned to other teams, according to The Information. Tesla announced earlier this month that it would layoff 10% of its workforce.

The Information also reported that Daniel Ho, head of the new vehicles program, and his employees will be let go and that the company's public policy team will be dissolved. Rohan Patel, former vice president of public policy and business development, left the company earlier this month.

"Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," CEO Elon Musk wrote in the email, according to The Information. "While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so."

Tesla did not respond to USA TODAY'S request for comment Tuesday.

Cuts lead to questions about charging network

Bullet EV Charging Solutions learned of the layoffs when an executive was told to "turn around" ahead of a meeting with a now laid-off Tesla construction lead, according to Andres Pinter, co-CEO of Bullet, an electric vehicle charging installation and maintenance firm that has contracts with Tesla

Pinter told USA TODAY on Tuesday that he had confidence that Tesla would meet its commitments to his company and in Musk's long-term management of the company while noting that the charging network overseen by the department affected by the cuts was a key element in the company's success.

"I think that it would be suicide for the business to retreat from charging. Tesla's Supercharger network in particular is one of the reasons that consumers buy the vehicles because there's ubiquitous charging that has nearly 100% uptime," Pinter said. "It's a move I think, whether or not it was the right move is to be determined. But he's (Musk) also much smarter than any of us."

In a post on X, Musk said that the company would expand the charging network at a slower pace while expanding existing locations.

Supercharger team latest in line of layoffs

Musk and Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja addressed layoffs in the company's earnings call earlier this month with CFO Vaibhav Taneja saying, "Any tree that grows needs pruning."

The Reno Gazette Journal, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, reported Tuesday that the company posted a layoff notice for 693 employees in the state, primarily at Gigafactory 1 in Sparks.

On April 22, the company posted a layoff notice for 2,688 employees at Tesla's Austin, Texas factory. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 2,735 workers in the Bay Area would be laid off the following day.

"We're not giving up anything that significant that I'm aware of," Musk said on the call.

Martin Viecha, Tesla's vice president of Investor Relations, announced his departure from the company during the earnings call and Drew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and electrical engineering, left ahead of the call.

Tesla had 140,473 employees globally at the end of 2023, according to Reuters.