Elon Musk's Tesla announces fourth week of layoffs as EV car maker continues to shred staff

Elon Musk's Tesla has laid off staff from the software, service and engineering departments in a fourth week of job cuts as the EV car maker keeps shedding staff.

The move comes after Tesla announced it would cut the prices of three of its five models in the US as the company faces falling sales, stiff competition in the electric vehicle market and the recall of nearly 4,000 Cybertrucks due to a potentially fatal flaw with the accelerator.

In a damning blow,  Musk also announced Tesla would axe 10 percent of its global workforce of roughly 140,000 earlier this month, claiming the layoffs would 'enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.'

Employees at the automaker received emails over the weekend as part of broader layoffs - marking the fourth week similar emails were sent to staff, according to an Electrek report.

Tesla, whose shares were up more than 1 percent, has not publicly commented on the layoffs.

The company disclosed in notices last month that it will lay off more than 6,700 employees across its locations in Texas, California, Nevada and New York.

Tesla has been under pressure from dropping sales and an intensifying price war among automakers as elevated interest rates have slowed the adoption of electric vehicles.

Several analysts now expect Tesla's annual deliveries to fall for the first time in 2024 after years of double-digit growth. 

The company warned in January that delivery growth would be 'notably lower' this year, signaling that price cuts would be insufficient to lift demand.

The company is looking to focus on autonomous driving software, robotaxis and its humanoid robot Optimus, and Musk could be cutting its spending on certain teams to preserve cash for those projects, analysts have said.

Tesla disclosed last month it expects to book more than $350 million in costs in the second quarter for the mass layoffs. 

The job cuts also included an exodus of top executives, including Drew Baglino, Rohan Patel, Rebecca Tinucci and Daniel Ho.

The company said in April it was working on 'new models' that would use its current platforms and production lines - a move that is expected to let it better control capital expenditures.

Last week, the company reportedly rescinded its summer internship offers from university students - amid mass layoffs and budget cuts.

Multiple students across the U.S. took to LinkedIn to share their situation and how they were coping the situation, especially since most were due start their new job in merely three weeks.

According to the New York Post, The EV company usually onboards more than 6,000 students in the spring, summer and fall for internships.

Prices were cut on cars in the US, Chinese and European markets this month, as well as the company's premium driver assistance system. 

Reuters exclusively reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for the model and shifted focus to building a self-driving robotaxi on the same small-car platform.

Musk has predicted the imminent arrival of fully autonomous cars for years, but may still be years from delivering, given the steep engineering and regulatory challenges.

He has also raised more questions with recent social media posts about Tesla's self-driving vehicle strategy. 

Musk recently teased a 'Robotaxi unveil' on '8/8,' presumably meaning August 2024, and later posted that going 'balls to the wall' on autonomy was a 'blindingly obvious' move.