Elon Musk issues brutal email to Tesla staff as he goes 'absolutely hardcore' and fires two senior executives, his entire Supercharger team, and moves to lay off hundreds more employees

Elon Musk fired two Tesla senior executives and announced plans to go 'absolutely hardcore' with layoffs, frustrated by falling sales and the pace of job cuts so far, according to a new report. 

The Tesla boss, who sat down with Chinese premier Li Qiang on Sunday promising an imminent roll-out of driverless cars in the country, sent a brutal email to senior managers Monday night, The Information reported.

Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of the electric vehicle maker charging infrastructure, and Daniel Ho, head of the new vehicles program, will leave on Tuesday morning, the report said.

Musk also plans to dismiss everyone working for Tinucci and Ho, including the roughly 500 employees who work in the Supercharger group.

'Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction. While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so,' Musk said. 

Elon Musk announced plans to go 'absolutely hardcore' with layoffs, frustrated by falling sales and the pace of job cuts so far

Elon Musk fired two Tesla senior executives, Daniel Ho (left) and Rebecca Tinucci (right) and laid off Tinucci's 500 person team

Ho joined Tesla in 2013 and was a program manager in the development of the Model S, the 3, and the Y before being put in charge of all new vehicles.

Tinucci joined in 2018 as a senior product manager and has been in charge of the Supercharging and Destination Charging businesses since 2022.

Tesla's public policy team, which was led by former executive Rohan Patel, will also be dissolved.

Patel and battery development chief Drew Baglino announced their departures earlier this month, when Tesla also ordered the layoffs of more than 10 percent of its workforce.

Tesla has already laid off at least 14,000 of its global workforce including from its Texas and Buffalo factories, under pressure from dropping sales and an intensifying price war among EV makers. 

Musk's visit to China came just a week after canceling a meeting with India's PM Narendra Modi, citing 'very heavy Tesla obligations'.

The company has lost nearly a third of its value since the start of the year with investors growing tired of repeated delays to its roll-out of cars with full self-driving software (FSD). 

But Li praised Tesla as a successful example of US China economic cooperation as analysts hailed 'a major moment for Tesla'.

'While the long term valuation story at Tesla hinges on FSD and autonomous, a key missing piece in that puzzle is Tesla making FSD available in China which now appears on the doorstep,' said equity firm Wedbush.

Musk sat down with Chinese premier Li Qiang on Sunday promising an imminent roll-out of driverless cars in the country

Musk opened his first Chinese gigafactory in Shanghai six years ago and it is now Tesla's biggest in the world.

Earlier this month Musk tweeted that a Chinese roll-out of his FSD would happen 'very soon', with Li seemingly relaxed about using his country's crowded streets as the testbed for the pioneering technology.

But Musk was also keen to win his permission to take home data collected in China to train algorithms for Tesla's autonomous driving technologies in the US, sources told Reuters.

Tesla has since 2021 stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai as required by Chinese regulators and has not transferred any back to the United States.

'Honored to meet with Premier Li Qiang. We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai days,' Musk posted on his social media platform X, as he appeared in a picture with the premier.