SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Global job cuts at Tesla (NASDAQ:) are hitting China, the automaker’s biggest market after the United States, affecting team personnel including sales, two sources briefed on the matter said.
CEO Elon Musk on Monday told employees in an internal memo seen by Reuters that the company is laying off more than 10% of its workforce worldwide as it grapples with falling sales and an intensifying price war on electric vehicles.
Two sources said some Tesla sales employees in China had been notified, and one said more than 10% had lost their jobs. A second source said other teams were also affected.
Tesla China did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both sources declined to give their names because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Local authorities in Shanghai and Beijing did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tesla’s largest factory in the world is located in Shanghai, and Tesla’s head office in China is in Beijing.
The cuts come as Tesla faces growing competition in China, the world’s largest auto market, where it is locked in a bitter price war with rivals led by BYD (SZ:), which are rapidly introducing new models.
The global cuts are a sign of pricing pressure as Tesla invests in new models and artificial intelligence, company analysts say. Gartner (NYSE:) and Hargreaves Lansdowne said Monday.
Tesla said this month that its global vehicle deliveries fell in the first quarter for the first time in nearly four years.
(This story has been rewritten to remove extraneous words in paragraph 3)