Tesla is laying off 3.5% of its employees. But most of the former Tesla employees have no reason to worry about finding a new job.
According to Punks & Pinstripes, major tech companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Google have recruited dozens of ex-Tesla talent. The group tracked LinkedIn data on more than 450 employees who left Tesla in the past 90 days ending June 30.
Apart from the mentioned tech companies, many employees moved to work at other electric vehicle companies. For instance, 90 former Tesla employees have joined electric car makers Rivian and Lucid Motors. Meanwhile, only eight employees have jumped to more traditional automakers, including General Motors and Ford. Electric vehicle battery recycling company Redwood Materials and Amazon-backed self-driving company Zoox have also taken on some Tesla employees.
More than 100 former Tesla employees have joined Amazon and Apple. In fact, Apple has hired top Tesla talent in the past. Say, a year ago, the Cupertino-based Apple was developing a car project code named “Project Titan”, Apple recruited Christopher Moore. He is the former director of Tesla’s autonomous driving system Autopilot.
Why are Tesla employees so sought after?
The reason behind this is that Tesla has high requirements when hiring people. At Tesla, Musk has set ambitious goals and demands excellence from his employees. Musk said he values candidates with first-hand experience and hands-on testing experience more than degrees.
This sounds reasonable and acceptable to many managers and business owners. But experts have a lot of concerns. Say, they think such an approach will bring a brain drain. The labor market doesn’t include so many high-class specialists.
Anyway, not only Tesla but other tech giants have to take measures. Musk has begun “making adjustments” because of the recession. Not only that, Musk has repeatedly expressed concerns about the company’s future over the past few weeks. He said that Tesla’s new factories in Austin, Texas, and Berlin, Germany, have become “giant money melting pots.” On Monday, Tesla’s sales fell nearly 18% between April and June.
Apart from Tesla, other bigwigs facing similar issues. On June 30, Facebook parent company Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media company plans to scale back hiring. In early June, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the crypto platform would cut 18% of its workforce.