- Elon Musk said he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and needed to cut 10% of Tesla jobs.
- He sent an email to executives on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters.
- Musk titled the email "pause all hiring worldwide."
Elon Musk told Tesla executives to pause all hiring worldwide because he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy and needed to cut 10% of the company's workforce, Reuters reported.
Tesla's annual SEC filing indicated that the company employed almost 100,000 people at the end of last year, which means thousands of jobs could be axed.
Musk's comments came two days after he sent a memo to all Tesla employees to return to the office or resign.
He titled his first email "remote work is no longer acceptble" and appeared to address it to executive staff only, Electrek reported.
"The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence," Musk wrote, Electrek reported. "This is why I lived in the factory so much — so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt."
Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment outside normal working hours.
Musk said on Thursday that "recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function" in response to a tweet by Scott Farquhar, an Australian tech billionaire, who encouraged Tesla employees to look into its remote-work positions.
When asked by a Twitter user whether a recession was approaching, Musk responded: "Yes, but this is actually a good thing. It has been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies need to happen."
He added: "Also, all the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don't actually need to work hard. Rude awakening inbound!"