We are getting more information on the ongoing layoffs at Tesla. Several employees describe the situation as Elon Musk “throwing his weight around” to solidify his status after being mostly absent over the last year.
But he is coming in like a dangerous wrecking ball.
Sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that Musk was not as frequently present at Tesla as he used to be over the last year and since his acquisition of Twitter.
That has changed over the last few weeks.
Musk is now all over Tesla or at least, his presence is being felt everywhere at Tesla.
It started with the first wave of layoffs two weeks ago. Musk announced that Tesla would be laying off about 10% of its workforce and used his usual excuse of growing the headcount too fast, resulting in hiring inefficiencies with duplicate jobs.
Tesla started another wave of layoffs this week – including the entire charging organization.
Now, Electrek has learned that Musk also gutted Tesla’s cathode material manufacturing team in Texas.
It started with Anthony Thurston, Senior Manager, Cathode Materials & Manufacturing at Tesla, earlier this month, but Electrek has learned that Musk has now let go of most of the team.
Sources familiar with the matter describe a difficult situation at Tesla right now. Uncertainty, confusion, and frustration are the main feelings going around the offices.
What I’m hearing within Tesla right now is uncertainty, confusion, and frustration.
Restructuring is never easy, and there’s a good argument that Tesla, like many companies, needs to restructure to face the imminent impact of AI.
Several sources confirmed that there are rumors around Tesla that the vehicle engineering and design departments are next.
During Tesla’s earnings call last week, Musk commented a bit more on the layoffs. This time, he said it was about “reorganizing” the company:
We’ve made some corrections along the way. But it is time to reorganize the company for the next phase of growth and you really need to reorganize it.
Analysts and Tesla fans are trying to understand the logic behind some of these moves and the firing of almost the entire charging organization, around 500 people, has been hard to understand for most people.
Musk said that Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network but with a focus on existing stations:
Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations
Sources say that Tesla will have issues continuing to grow the network without the organization of Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla’s former head of charging.
In the past, Tesla rehired people it fired after realizing that it couldn’t get the work done without them.
This is raising questions about the logic behind some of the layoffs and their efficacy.
Sources familiar with the matter believe that some of the layoffs have nothing to do with hiring inefficiencies or restructuring, but rather with Musk throwing his weight around Tesla.
Two sources told Electrek that Tinucci was fighting back pressure from Musk to fire a bigger percentage of her team, and the CEO decided to let go of the entire team as an example.
Musk wrote in an email to executives on Sunday:
“Hopefully, these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard-core about headcount and cost reduction. While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.”
The message is clear: fire people as many people as I’m asking, or you and your entire team will be gone.
Electrek’s Take
This is clearly about more than hiring inefficiency and restructuring. Musk is cleaning house. It could be that he has serious concerns about the economy and lack of reversal for Tesla’s sales in the short term, but he didn’t go into that in the earnings call last week.
It could be about more than that. I don’t know if I completely agree with the theory that Musk is securing his leadership position at Tesla, but it is a viable theory.
As I previously presented, the vote on his compensation package is turning into a vote of confidence in the CEO.
These layoffs are useful for him on that front. A lot of the leadership is gone. With every leader leaving, Musk becomes more needed at Tesla. Also, it doesn’t hurt that all these leaders are unloading their stocks, which won’t be voted against him.
However, it raises the question: is it actually good for Tesla?
The Supercharger team did something incredible: build the only successful and liked fast-charging network in North America, which is critical to EV adoption.
Firing the entire team because the head was pushing back on the number of layoffs is ridiculous, especially if the plan is still to grow the network. Tesla needs to grow the network since it is currently onboarding other automakers on it. Even if Tesla sees its own sales slowing down, the Supercharger network will need a capacity increase.
Everyone I talked to at Tesla says that it is a complete mess. Contractors for most ongoing Supercharger projects lost their point of contact at Tesla. Again, many suspect Tesla will try to rehire some of the workers fired.
Tesla has hiring inefficiencies leading to layoffs and layoffs inefficiencies leading to new hires.
It’s not a good look.
The only way I can get behind Musk on this is if Tesla’s financials are really in the dumpster. It doesn’t look that bad right now based on the financial statements, but it’s not impossible that Tesla has internal numbers, like orders coming in, that look awful.
Some of this reminds me of Tesla in 2019. Things were looking pretty good, but Tesla launched a huge cost-cutting effort. We later learned that Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy because it didn’t anticipate how costly it would be to launch Model 3 in high volume in Europe.
The long transit time put a lot of financial pressure on Tesla, and the cost-cutting effort was intended to compensate for that – Musk didn’t communicate to shareholders until later.
Maybe there’s something similar going on that we don’t know about, but at the same time, Tesla is in a completely different situation right now, sitting on $27 billion in cash.
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Lucid Motors (LCID) reported first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, reaffirming its plans to more than double EV production in 2025. Despite the threat of new tariffs, the EV maker expects to continue building momentum after another record quarter.
Lucid stands by 20,000 EV production goal for 2025
In the first three months of 2025, Lucid delivered 3,109 vehicles, setting its fifth straight quarterly record. The company’s production is also picking up, with 2,213 vehicles built at its Casa Grande plant in Arizona. Another 600 were in transit to Saudi Arabia, where they will be assembled at Lucid’s new AMP-2 plant.
At this rate, Lucid is on track to deliver around 12,500 vehicles, easily topping the 10,200 vehicles it delivered in 2024.
With its first electric SUV, the Gravity, now rolling out, Lucid is poised to see even more demand throughout the year.
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Lucid reported first-quarter revenue of $235 million, up slightly from the $234.5 million in Q4 2024 and an increase of 35% from Q1 2024.
Despite higher sales, the EV maker cut its net loss to $366 million from over $680 million in the first quarter of 2024. Lucid also improved gross margins by 37 pts year-over-year (YOY) to -97%.
Even with the added tariffs, Lucid still expects to produce around 20,000 vehicles in 2025, more than double the roughly 9,000 cars it made last year.
Like most automakers, Lucid is preparing for a shakeup under the Trump administration, including possibly ending the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. Earlier today, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said there’s “a better chance we kill it than save it” during an interview.
Lucid Gravity electric SUV at a Tesla Supercharger (Source: Lucid Motors)
The company said, “A thorough analysis of tariffs, supply chain, and related macroeconomic uncertainties is ongoing.”
Lucid ended the first quarter with around $5.76 billion in total liquidity, which the company said is enough to fund it into the second half of 2026, when it plans to launch its midsize platform.
Lucid midsize electric SUV teaser image (Source: Lucid)
Former CEO Peter Rawlinson said earlier this year that Lucid’s midsize platform is “finally when we compete directly with Tesla.” The first two vehicles are expected to be an electric SUV and sedan, starting at around $50,000, which could rival Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3.
But first, it will focus on its new electric SUV. The Lucid Gravity Grand Touring is available to order starting at $94,900 with up to 450 miles of range. Later this year, Lucid will launch the lower-priced Touring trim, starting at $79,900.
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Audi is looking to dodge new US tariffs by manufacturing its electric vehicles on American soil.
After the Trump administration slapped a 25% tariff on EVs imported from outside North America starting May 3, Audi is eyeing three possible production sites in the US to avoid the hefty fees. Right now, the automaker imports most of its US-sold vehicles from Europe and Mexico, but that’s now a lot more expensive.
Sources told Germany’s Automobilwoche (via its sister publication Automotive News Europe) that Audi may tap into its parent company Volkswagen Group’s US facilities to make the move. One option is to build the Q4 E-tron or its future version at VW’s Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant. That factory already builds the VW ID.4, which rides on the same MEB electric platform as the Q4 E-tron.
Audi is also reportedly considering the under-construction Scout Motors factory in Columbia, South Carolina, for the Q8 E-tron. The midsize electric SUV was initially slated for production in Mexico, but South Carolina could be a more cost-effective bet now in light of Trump’s tariffs.
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For its third electric SUV, the upcoming Q6 E-tron, Audi is said to still be hunting for a US production site.
So far, nothing is official. But Audi isn’t hiding the fact that it’s ramping up efforts to expand its US presence. A spokesperson told Automotive News Europe: “We are currently examining various scenarios. We are confident that we will be able to decide on the specific details in consultation with the Group before the end of this year.”
On a May 5 earnings call, Audi CFO Jürgen Rittersberger confirmed that the company plans to launch 10 models in the US and will lock in production locations before the end of 2025.
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American EV automaker Rivian has shared its full financial report and shareholder letter for Q1 2025. The quarterly update details continued gross profits and a growing interest in the company’s two flagship BEVs. Rivian is also making headway in developing its second model, R2.
Rivian ($RIVN) continues to roll along as a prominent shaker in the American EV space, especially as legacy competitors scramble to adapt to the ever-evolving threat to their assembly lines due to proposed tariffs and an ongoing trade war with other global superpowers like China.
Ahead of today’s full Q1 2025 report, Rivian has shared its delivery numbers for the first three months of the year, shipping out 8,640 R1S and R1T models to customers. This was to be expected, as Rivian CFO Claire McDonough said during the Q4 earnings call that the automaker anticipated the dip in deliveries, citing a “supply shortage of a component in our Enduro motor system” that began in Q3 2024.
Despite the notable drop in EV deliveries compared to previous quarters, Rivian relayed that it remained on track to deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 EVs in 2025. This afternoon, Rivian adjusted that target alongside financial updates pertaining to Q1 2025.
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Source: Rivian
Rivian’s Q1 2025 report by the numbers
The main headline of Rivian’s Q1 2025 was its gross profit of $206 million. That marks the American automaker’s second consecutive quarter of reporting gross profit as well as its highest to date. Rivian shared that of that $206 million mark, $92 million came from the automotive segment and $114 million came from its software and services segment.
Rivian also achieved an 85% increase in cash flow from operating activities in Q1 2025 compared to a year prior. As we spoke about earlier this week with a teaser image of Rivian’s new Maximus drive unit posted by CEO RJ Scaringe, reducing the cost-per-unit of its BEV components while increasing production efficiency – a key goal of the company at the moment.
According to the automaker, it has achieved a $22,600 reduction in automotive cost of goods sold per vehicle delivered in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2024.
Rivian also looks to bolster its balance sheet very soon, thanks to a previously announced joint venture with Volkswagen Group worthy of an investment of up to $5.8 billion. According to Rivian’s Q1 2025 report, its gross profit milestone has unlocked $1 billion from VW Group through said joint venture and is expected to be finalized by June 30, 2025.
While Rivian said its delivery targets were on track a month ago, the American automaker has since revised its annual numbers, citing the current economic trade environment around the world:
While Rivian has 100% US vehicle manufacturing and a majority of its bill of materials (excluding cells) coming from the U.S. or USMCA-qualified, Rivian is not immune to the impacts of the global trade and economic environment. The company’s guidance represents management’s current view on evolving trade regulation, policies, tariffs and the overall impact these items may have on consumer sentiment and demand. As a result of these impacts, Rivian has revised its delivery outlook to 40,000 to 46,000 vehicles.
That’s not a huge slide, and if Rivian hits the top end of that target, it would still equal the lower end of its previous goal for 2025. Looking ahead, Rivian said it is maintaining its outlook range for adjusted EBITDA of a $1.7 billion loss to a $1.9 billion loss. Rivian also relayed an expectation to achieve “modest positive gross profit for the full 2025 fiscal year. Lastly, Rivian is raising its capital expenditure guidance to between $1.8 billion and $1.9 billion, citing an expected impact from tariffs.
Other Rivian updates
Aside from the numbers, Rivian’s Q1 2025 shareholder letter included several progress updates, particularly regarding its highly anticipated R2 EVs. According to the company, it has commenced design validation builds on its R2 prototype line using production tooling.
The new 1.1 million-square-foot manufacturing expansion at Rivian’s Normal, Illinois, production facility, where the general assembly line for the R2 will be, is progressing on schedule and will “allow for additional manufacturing efficiency gains.” That new building will also house a new body shop.
This week, we learned that the new expansion will also be joined by a supplier park supported by a $16 million incentive package from Illinois.
Following today’s Q1 2025 report, Rivian will host an audio webcast to discuss the details above at 2:00 pm PT / 5:00 pm ET today. Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
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