Tesla shares were down over 1% in premarket trade Monday on media reports that the automaker will lay off more than 10% of its global workforce.

The company’s stock was down 1.2% in premarket deals at roughly 7:30 a.m. ET.

“As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in an internal memo cited by Reuters, which tech publication Electrek referenced in the first report of the layoffs.

“As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally,” the memo said.

CNBC was unable to independently verify the memo and has reached out for comment.

Tesla had 140,473 employees as of December 2023.

Tesla shares have taken a bruising in recent months, down 31% in the year-to-date amid waning demand for electric vehicles and stiffening competition from Chinese automakers. Foreshadowing layoffs, the company earlier this month reported its first annual decline in vehicle deliveries since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted production extraneous of demand — first-quarter deliveries fell by 8.5% on the year to 386,810 in the first quarter, with output down 1.7% from a year earlier and 12.5% sequentially.

Deliveries serve as an approximation of Tesla sales but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.

Since then, the firm has also resorted to trimming the subscription price of its premium driver assistance system, the Full Self-Driving package, for U.S. customers — in a move sharply at odds with Musk’s previous pledges that the FSD fee would only bulk up as Tesla bolsters the system’s features and functionality.

This breaking news story is being updated.

British stock trading app Freetrade hit eked out breakeven earlier this year, the company told CNBC, marking its first-ever move into the black after incurring full-year losses in 2023.

Freetrade reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of £100,000 ($124,863) in the first quarter of 2024, according to unaudited financial statements shared with CNBC.

Preliminary revenue hit £6.7 million in the quarter.

Freetrade still generated a loss of £8.3 million in 2023, down from the £28.8 million loss it racked up the year before. Revenues climbed to £21.6 million last year, up 45% from 2022.

“We defied difficult market conditions and delivered healthy growth in 2023 while dramatically reducing losses” in 2022, said Adam Dodds, CEO and founder of Freetrade.

A rally in crypto prices also helped Freetrade in the first quarter. Though the platform doesn’t offer crypto trading, Freetrade experienced increased retail investor activity in crypto-correlated stocks like Coinbase, MicroStrategy, and Marathon Digital.

OpenAI has opened its first Asian office in Tokyo, Japan as the ChatGPT developer aims to expand its global presence.

“We’re excited to be in Japan which has a rich history of people and technology coming together to do more,” CEO Sam Altman said in the statement released Sunday. “We believe AI will accelerate work by empowering people to be more creative and productive, while also delivering broad value to current and new industries that have yet to be imagined.”

As part of the move, the company has appointed Tadao Nagasaki as the new president of OpenAI Japan, to head commercial and market engagement efforts.

Tokyo was chosen due to “its global leadership in technology, culture of service, and a community that embraces innovation.”

“As a first step in our long-term commitment to the region, we’re providing local businesses with early access to a GPT-4 custom model specifically optimized for the Japanese language,” according to the statement.

“This custom model offers improved performance in translating and summarizing Japanese text, is cost effective, and operates up to 3x faster than its predecessor,” it added.

Japanese corporations like Daikin, Toyota as well as local governments are using ChatGPT to improve their efficiency, the company said.

Altman met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last year and reportedly mentioned he was looking into opening a new office in Japan.

The artificial intelligence startup burst into the mainstream after the public launch of the ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. The company is backed by Microsoft and has a private market valuation that’s reportedly approaching $100 billion.  

Last week, Microsoft said it will be investing $2.9 billion over the next two years to increase its hyperscale cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Japan.

This is the “single largest investment in its 46-year history in Japan, also the site of its first international office,” Microsoft said.