Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk told top managers he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and that the electric carmaker needed to cut staff by about 10%, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.
The email, titled "pause all hiring worldwide", was sent to Tesla executives on Thursday, underscoring an increasingly gloomy global economic outlook with prices soaring and war in Ukraine passing its 100th day.
The message from Musk came shortly after Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said the US economy faced challenges akin to a "hurricane".
"I see the statements as a forewarning ... in case the economy takes a turn for the worse."
"All car manufacturers are facing many problems at the moment: supply chain issues due to (coronavirus) and the Ukraine war, closures in China, supply shortages and so on."
"Since many plants have not been working at full capacity since the (coronavirus) pandemic began, planned cost-cutting measures by the car companies are quite understandable."
"The question is - will they (US Fed) be able to act as aggressively as they need to, and obviously Elon Musk doesn't think that they're going to be able to, without putting the economy into a deep recession. China slowdown is an added problem."
"It is clear that rising prices will weaken consumption. That is something we'll need to face."
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