Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said Tesla Inc.’s total headcount will increase, a day after telling employees he plans to reduce salaried staff by 10%.
The number of salaried employees will be “fairly flat” even as overall headcount rises, the billionaire said in a tweet Saturday. Musk had previously told staff that the job cuts won’t apply to those who build cars or battery packs, according to people who received an internal memo Friday.
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Shares of the automaker slumped more than 9% Friday after news of the job cuts emerged. Reuters had previously reported that Musk told some company executives he was cutting the number of Tesla employees broadly because he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.
About 39% of roughly 100,000 workers at Tesla were “production line employees,” according to the company’s annual report.