Tesla Cuts 9 Pct. Of Work Force In Bid To Post A Profit

Musk wrote in the email that the company will never achieve its mission to help move the world to cleaner energy “unless we eventually demonstrate that we can be sustainably profitable.”

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Electric car maker Tesla Inc. is laying offabout 3,600 workers mainly from its salaried ranks as it slashes costs in an effort to deliver on CEO Elon Musk’s promise to turn a profit in the second half of the year.

In an email to workers on Tuesday, Musk said the cuts amount to about 9 percent of the company’s workforce of 40,000.

Tesla would not say how much money the layoffs would save, but said no factory workers would be affected as the company continues to ramp up production of its lower-priced Model 3 compact car.

The move is part of an organizational restructuring that Musk announced earlier in the year.

“Tesla has grown and evolved rapidly over the past several years, which has resulted in some duplication of roles and some job functions that, while they made sense in the past, are difficult to justify today,” Musk wrote in the email. He thanked departing employees for their hard work and said Tesla is providing “significant salary and stock vesting” to those being let go, based on their length of service.