.Tesla Inc. cut a newly-formed marketing team in the course of layoffs for all employees, changing direction from an advertising campaign that Elon Musk had approved less than one year earlier.
People familiar with the situation said that the “growth content team” of the company in the US was cut as part of the job cuts. The group consisted about 40 people, led by Alex Ingram, senior manager, and reporting directly to Jorge Milburn. The people who spoke to us said that Ingram and Milburn had been part of this reduction. One person stated that the company has still a smaller group of marketing in Europe.
The people who spoke on condition of anonymity said that there were significant cuts in Tesla’s Hawthorne design studio, as well as in its staff.
Tesla and Musk did not respond to comments.
Tesla has essentially halted its nascent marketing campaign. Before Musk, the automaker had built its brand through word of mouth and avoided television, radio or print ads. Last year Ingram began building up the Tesla growth team four months prior.
Musk has been urged by investors to concentrate more on marketing, as the global growth of EVs is slowing and new competitors are entering the market. Musk’s purchase of Tesla has coincided in large part with Tesla’s advertising strategy. Twitter. He’s renamed X. Social-media platform aims to curb a sharp decline in ad revenue under the new owner, driven by major brands’ unease over content moderation and Musk’s own sometimes-controversial posts.
Tesla’s growing team is a good example of how the company has a broad scope. The largest ever job reductionMusk stated last week that the layoffs would impact more than 10 percent of global employees. Bloomberg reported the number could reach 20% or more in certain divisions. This would push the total layoffs to over 20,000.
Tesla shares dropped 4.6% in New York at 11:13 am. Stocks fell 41% in this calendar year, the second worst decline of the S&P 500 Index.
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