Elon Musk has fired Tesla's entire supercharging team

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Elon Musk has shuttered the division that runs Tesla's Supercharger business, fired two top executives and fired hundreds of other employees, as the electric carmaker continues to restructure amid a sharp downturn in the electric vehicle market.

Musk announced internally on Monday that Rebecca Tenucci, president of the Supercharger Group, and Daniel Ho, head of new products, will leave along with their entire teams. The memo said about 500 people were in the shipping group.

Tesla's supercharger system is among the largest charging networks in the world, and was one of the reasons the company has had such a lead over rival automakers for so long. While supercharging operations will continue, the move raises questions about the future of the charging business.

The entire public policy unit will also be disbanded following the departure of its leader, Rohan Patel, in mid-April.

“We hope these measures make clear that we need to be quite aggressive about headcount and cost cutting,” Musk wrote in the memo, which was first reported by The Information. “While some executives are taking this seriously, most are not yet.”

He added that any manager who “retains more than three people who clearly do not pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” should resign.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

The company's latest firings come after Musk announced last month that the automaker would cut “more than 10 percent” of its total workforce, more than 14,000 jobs, in order to be “lean, innovative and lean.”

The urgency of this shift was underscored by Tesla reporting a nearly 10 percent drop in revenue in the first quarter of this year, its first quarterly decline year over year since the start of 2020. The stock price fell by more than half from It peaked in November 2021 at just under $410 per share.

The decision surprised employees. Will Jameson, who worked on the Tesla Supercharger team, Written on X That Musk “has let our entire shipping enterprise go.” Another employee in that department, George Bahado, posted on LinkedIn to confirm his departure.

He added: “What does this mean for the charging network?” [North American Charging Standard] NACS, and all the exciting work we've been doing across the industry, I don't know yet. What a wild ride.”

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Musk said in the memo that the supercharging sites under construction will be completed and “some” new sites will be built.

The surprise move comes despite Tesla building a dominant electric vehicle charging network 50,000 locations worldwide And 15,000 in North America. It has recently signed contracts with several competitors, including Ford, General Motors and Rivian, to use its NACS charging standard.

Models from other automakers will be able to use their branded charging stations, which could bring Tesla a significant revenue stream, as well as establish it as the de facto industry standard.

Tinucci, he and Patel are not the only Musk assistants to depart this year. Drew Baglino, a senior vice president who leads Tesla's engineering and technology development for batteries, motors and energy products, resigned in April, and Martin Vicha, head of investor relations, said he would step down from the company's first-quarter earnings call last week.

In a post on X, Musk said the automaker will continue to grow its supercharger network “at a slower pace for new locations.”

“More focus on 100 percent uptime and expanding existing sites,” he wrote.