Elon Musk shocked Tesla fans on Monday after news leaked that he was eliminating everyone at Tesla Supercharger production, starting with the highest-ranking female executive.
According to an email from an entrepreneur received by InformationTesla’s senior director of electric vehicle charging, Rebecca Tinucci, will leave the company effective immediately. Musk also told employees he would fire all members of its Supercharging team, which he said has about 500 employees.
Tinucci is also the company’s most senior female executive, as board chairman Robin Denholm is not involved in day-to-day operations and only has supervisory and management responsibilities.
The destruction of core operations like Tinucci’s is reminiscent of the massive run on Twitter that Musk carried out after taking over the company. He even prefaced this month’s mass layoffs at Tesla, which saw more than one in 10 jobs cut, with a similar questionnaire for managers requiring them to justify their human resources.
“I hope these actions make it clear that we need to be absolutely tough on headcount and cost cutting,” he wrote by email seen Information, which also announced the termination of the public policy team led by outgoing chief executive Rohan Patel. “While some leaders are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.”
Impact move
The move came as a shock because Tesla’s dense network of 50,000 Supercharger stations around the world was a game changer, eliminating range anxiety associated with the transition to electric vehicles. No other automaker designs, manufactures or operates its own fast-charging network remotely comparable to Tesla’s scale—it has long been considered Tesla’s strategic moat, protecting it from the threat of new competition.
The main reason many investors are so convinced that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software will become the industry standard is because of past experience. Let’s start with Ford last MayAmerican automakers made a fateful decision to abandon competing charging standards and switch to Tesla’s proprietary NACS equipment.
Elektrek, one of the leading news sites about electric vehicles, called the decision “absolutely crazy,” especially since Musk is asking shareholders to also approve his record pay package in June, worth about $58 billion at today’s stock price.
“There is absolutely no point in firing the Supercharger team.” commented publication. “Supercharge is an incredible opportunity for Tesla, especially now that everyone else has adopted NACS.”
Just weeks earlier, Tinucci had the honor of giving a presentation to Wall Street analysts at Tesla’s Investor Day last March. With the exception of a handful of aides such as chief designer Franz von Holzhausen and chief engineer Lars Moravi, the executives behind Musk rarely interact with the general public.
During her talk, she outlined her vision for reducing network costs by increasing site utilization without increasing customer wait times. Since Tesla is the only manufacturer that has access to real-time data on both its fleet and fast charging network, it could develop software that it says will serve as an “air traffic controller,” guiding Tesla owners through to the whole world. to the most convenient Supercharger.
Tesla disbanded its press relations team several years ago and did not respond to Luck request for comment. Tinucci, who will be the fourth senior executive to leave within a month, could not be reached. Luck. Her LinkedIn profile still lists Tesla as her current employer.