News

Tesla To Lay Off 285 Employees In Buffalo?

Tesla To Lay Off 285 Employees In Buffalo

Tesla to lay off 285 employees in Buffalo? According to reports, Tesla will be cutting 10% of their staffs in the coming hours.

Tesla is laying off 285 employees in New York as part of a larger restructuring, according to a WARN notice filed with the state. According to the filing, the majority of these employees worked at the company’s Buffalo factory, with a few also working at a nearby store and service center.

Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a company-wide memo informing employees that the automaker would be laying off more than 10% of its global workforce. Tesla has shared few details about the layoffs, other than a leaked memo stating that the workforce reduction would help “prepare the company” for a “next phase of growth.”

The layoffs announced in Buffalo represent a 14% reduction in headcount there.

Key Highlights

According to a WARN notice submitted with the state, Tesla is laying off 285 employees in Buffalo, New York as part of a larger reorganization.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, announced earlier this week that the automaker would be laying off over 10% of its workforce worldwide in a memo addressed to the entire company.
The layoffs that have been made public in Buffalo represent a 14% decrease in staffing there. The majority of workers are employed by Tesla at their Supercharger equipment manufacturing facility.

Tesla took over the Buffalo factory after acquiring solar installer SolarCity for $2.6 billion in 2017.

Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity was widely criticized as a bailout for an ailing solar company with close ties to Tesla’s CEO and board. Musk funded and co-founded SolarCity with his cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, and served as its chairman. Another Musk company, SpaceX, had bought SolarCity bonds, and if the company went bankrupt, they would have lost their money as well.

Empire State taxpayers contributed approximately $1 billion to the Buffalo factory’s construction, including equipment purchases, in the hopes of supporting the creation of thousands of high-tech jobs in the region.

Tesla’s solar deployments fell to 223 megawatts in 2023, a 36% decrease from 348 megawatts the year before. Tesla’s solar deployments reached their lowest level since 2020, when they reported 205 megawatts.

Their energy division continues to generate the majority of its revenue through the sale of backup batteries, also known as battery energy storage systems, which are used in residential, commercial, and utility-scale projects.

Instead of manufacturing solar panels in Buffalo, Tesla now assembles Supercharger equipment there and previously relocated a portion of its Autopilot data labeling team. The company has also informed shareholders that it plans to build supercomputer hardware in Buffalo.