Let’s be fair it’s not been a brilliant 2018 for Tesla and especially its patriarch Elon Musk. Lack of cash and struggling to build cars aside, 2018 has not been good for both; in June news broke that Tesla would be cutting thousands of jobs in attempts to reach profitability.
Nearly 4,000 of the company’s 40,000 employees were affected. Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of the firm called the layoffs “difficult but necessary.” Adding: “I also want to emphasize that we are making this hard decision now so that we never have to do this again.” By the halfway mark in the calendar year, June ’18 Tesla had not met its 2017 goal for production, and in May 2018, Musk survived a coup from vociferous shareholders.
A short while later, August to be precise, New York Times journalist David Gelles who specialises in interviewing big-name CEOs announced that Elon Musk was the ‘MOST’ vulnerable CEO he’d spoken to, this pronouncement was more about Elon’s exhaustion and mental state, rather than he’s precarious seat on the board of Tesla was backed up by a report in early September 2018, which claimed Mr Musk is often found asleep exhausted under his desk, Business Insider spoke with 42 employees of Tesla, who majoritively agreed Musk is running aground, with Miguel Carrera, a Manufacturing Technical Lead, revealing: “He’s here all the time. I know people have seen him sleeping on the floor under a desk. All of a sudden, everybody’s walking out, you look around, and someone is curled up under the desk, come to find out it’s Elon.” So Tesla is missing targets, burning through cash reserves and now the founder is so knackered he’s asleep under his desk. What more could go wrong?
‘Hang-on I got this’ Elon Musk didn’t say; but should have, as he was filmed smoking weed on a Talk-Show Podcast which appeared on YouTube. Although legal in California, where the Podcast was shot, it didn’t look brilliant. Nor did his acknowledgement that it was ok for him and his employees saying to the Guardian News Paper: “Our policy allows trace amounts of THC [an ingredient of cannabis] during work times, provided they are below the safety limit.”
Following this, Tesla’s Chief People Officer (HR Director), Gaby Toledano quit, only two weeks after Tesla's Chief Accounting Officer Dave Morton also resigned. The sound of rats deserting a sinking ship was audible in September. Today, the story is complete, with the announcement that Elon Musk will be stepping down as Tesla's Chairman for three years following an allegation of fraud, although Musk will remain Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer.
What now for Tesla?
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