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Tesla is reportedly asking managers to identify which roles are most important in a sign layoffs may be coming

A composite image of Elon Musk and the parking lot of the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the Tesla factory in Fremont, California Nathan Howard and Justin Sullivan via Getty Images
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Tesla may be preparing for a round of layoffs.

The electric carmaker has begun asking managers to identify which employee roles on their team are vital to the company, according to a report from Bloomberg on Wednesday.

The company has also recently canceled some of its employees' performance reviews, people with knowledge of the issue told Bloomberg.

Tesla has performance reviews twice a year, but salaried workers are only eligible for a promotion or bonus once a year, four workers told Business Insider. The company said on its website it rates employees on a scale of one to five.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elon Musk has been known for his cost-cutting efforts across his companies. The billionaire cut Twitter's workforce in half after he purchased the company in 2022. Ahead of layoffs at the social media company, the billionaire asked team leaders to create lists of top performers based on performance reviews and code reviews.

Last year, in a sign Tesla might be slowing down its hiring, the Tesla CEO told staff he must approve all new Tesla hires.

During Tesla's earnings call earlier this year, Musk warned of a sales slowdown in 2024 and said workers will be practically "sleeping on the line" as they work to ramp production for Tesla's next-gen vehicle platform.

Over the past year, the automaker has continually slashed prices for its vehicles and tried its hand at advertising for the first time in the company's history. Tesla is also facing increased competition from Chinese automakers.

Do you work for Tesla or have insight to share? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at gkay@insider.com

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Grace Kay
Grace Kay was a Correspondent on Business Insider’s enterprise desk, where she covered the inner workings of Tesla, Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, and the broader robotics and electric vehicle industries.Her stories have been cited by multiple publications, including Reuters, Bloomberg, and CNBC. Before joining Business Insider, she worked at Bloomberg and Forbes.Tesla: Inside 'Project Rodeo,' the Tesla effort pushing the limits of self-driving technologyInternal Tesla salary database shows Elon Musk's strategy: Lower salaries, bigger stock grantsTesla tells staff it plans to roll out its Robotaxi service in San Francisco this weekendTesla has been working on modified Model Ys for its Robotaxi programTesla prioritizes Musk's and other 'VIP' drivers' data to train self-driving softwareAshok Elluswamy is the most powerful Tesla executive you've never heard ofxAI:Internal documents reveal how Elon Musk's xAI trains Grok to be the anti-woke chatbotXAI's Macrohard project stalls as Tesla ramps up a similar AI agent effortElon Musk's xAI plans to supply computing power to coding startup CursorWar rooms, group chats, and video games: Inside Elon Musk's AI startupBehind Grok's 'sexy' settings, workers review explicit and disturbing contentElon Musk's xAI lays off hundreds of workers tasked with training GrokEVs and robots:Fisker employees are fixing some customers' cars with parts from the company's vehicle 'graveyard,' sources sayFisker Ocean reservation cancellations top 40,000 as the EV company tries to fight off bankruptcy, leaked data showsInside the downfall of Henrik Fisker's second automotive startup, which just filed for bankruptcyInside the glass-walled Tesla lab where workers train the Optimus robot to act like a humanInside OpenAI's renewed push into robotics