The company’s “growth content” team in the US, a group of about 40 employees run by senior manager Alex Ingram and reporting to Jorge Milburn, was eliminated in the ongoing job cuts, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company still has a smaller marketing group in Europe, one person said.
The cuts signal a pullback from Tesla’s nascent advertising initiative.
Investors have increasingly called on Musk to focus more on marketing as global EV sales growth has slowed and more competitors have entered the market.
Tesla’s embrace of advertising has also broadly coincided with Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, which he’s renamed X.
The upheaval in Tesla’s growth team underscores the broad reach of the company’s largest-ever job cuts, which Musk said last week would affect more than 10% of the global workforce.
Tesla’s shares fell 4.6% at 11:13 a.m. in New York.
The stock tumbled 41% this year through April 19, the second-worst decline in the S&P 500 Index.
People familiar with the matter claim that as part of the ongoing job cuts, the company’s “growth content” team in the US—a group of about 40 workers led by senior manager Alex Ingram and answering to Jorge Milburn—was eliminated. The sources claimed that Ingram and Milburn were included in the cutback. As per one source, the company maintains a smaller marketing group in Europe.
According to those who asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, there were also sizable layoffs at Tesla’s Hawthorne, California design studio and staff.
Requests for comments from Tesla and Musk went unanswered.
The reductions represent a retreat from Tesla’s recently launched advertising campaign. Tesla had established a strong brand primarily through word-of-mouth and had long shunned print, radio, television, and internet advertisements. However, last year, Musk announced that Tesla would “try a little advertising and see how it goes.”. Three months ago, roughly, Ingram began assembling the growth team.
With the slowdown in the growth of EV sales worldwide and the entry of new competitors, investors have increasingly pressured Musk to concentrate more on marketing. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, which he renamed X, and Tesla’s embrace of advertising have largely occurred at the same time. Due in large part to major brands’ concerns about content moderation and Musk’s occasionally controversial posts, the social media platform has attempted to reverse a sharp decline in ad revenue under its new ownership.
The disruption in Tesla’s growth team highlights the extent of the company’s most extensive job cuts to date, which Musk claimed would impact over 10 percent of the workforce worldwide last week. According to Bloomberg, in certain divisions, the percentage may be closer to 20%, which could result in more than 20,000 layoffs overall.
At 11:13 a.m., Tesla’s stock dropped 44.6 percent. M. Here in New York. With the second-worst decline in the SandP 500 Index, the stock fell 41% so far this year through April 19.
