TapTechNews May 14th news, according to Bloomberg, Tesla is rehiring some of the supercharging team members who were laid off by CEO Elon Musk at the end of last month.
According to sources, the highest-ranking person being rehired is North American charging business director Max de Zegher. He was one of the subordinates of senior director Rebecca Tinucci who was laid off by Musk last month, when almost the entire charging team was disbanded.
It is currently unknown how many laid-off employees have been rehired, and Musk and de Zegher have not responded to requests for comment.
Musk's decision to dissolve the team shocked the entire electric vehicle industry, as supercharging stations can be said to be one of Tesla's most forward-looking products. Over the past year, Tesla has persuaded competitors to adopt its charging interface as an industry standard and has signed agreements with many large global automakers to open its supercharging network to users of these manufacturers.
In the midst of opposition, Musk promised last week to invest well over $500 million (TapTechNews note: approximately 36.2 billion RMB) this year to expand Tesla's charging network. Just a few days ago, the CEO also said the company plans to slowly increase the number of charging stations and focus more on the normal operation of existing charging stations.
On May 10th, the @TeslaCharging account on X, a social media platform owned by Musk, thanked the owners of the charging stations and suppliers for their patience during the company's internal restructuring period, which de Zegher retweeted.
The 52-year-old Musk has previously reversed impulsive layoffs. In 2019, he announced that Tesla would close most of its stores and move sales online, catching many sales team members off guard. However, 10 days later, due to landlords refusing to terminate leases, Musk reversed the decision and raised car prices.
A similar situation occurred on Twitter at the end of 2022: shortly after Musk fired about half of the employees, dozens of former employees were asked to return to work.
Tesla launched its first set of superchargers in September 2012, when the automaker was starting production of the Model S sedan. Currently, Tesla has over 6,200 supercharging stations and 57,000 charging stalls worldwide.