Tesla has just closed its San Matteo office in California, laying off approximately 200 workers from its Autopilot program, and moving another 150 employees to a nearby office. Bloomberg reported that Tesla notified staff on Tuesday. Many of the affected employees were responsible for evaluating and labeling Autopilot data from customers.
Tesla has not immediately responded to requests for comment. Tesla has no public relations department since it was disbanded in 2020.
Elon Musk has written recently of cuts to staff and workforce, telling employees he had a “super-bad” feeling about the economy, as it now heads into a likely recession. He later said he intended to reduce the workforce by about 10% over the next three months, in a talk with Bloomberg.
Musk has also been demanding workers still working from home after the pandemic, return to work. However there were reports the return to work was bungled, with many employees returning to the company’s Freemont facility to find that there were not enough parking spots or desks to accommodate all the returning workers.