The company was not immediately available for comment.
Musk’s blatant warning of a possible recession and a knock-on effect on automakers is the most direct and high-quality forecast in the industry.
As concerns about the risk of a recession increase, demand for Tesla cars and other electric vehicles remains strong, and many traditional indicators of the downturn – including rising dealer inventory in the United States – remain inactive.
“There’s a hurricane in our path,” Timon said this week.
Inflation in the United States has been at a 40-year high and has caused a rise in the cost of living for Americans, while the Federal Reserve faces the daunting task of reducing enough to control inflation without causing a recession.
‘Stop all hiring’
Prior to Musk’s warning in an email entitled “Stop hiring globally,” Tesla had about 5,000 job posts on sale at Tokyo on LinkedIn and engineers at its new Berlin Gigafactory to deep learning scientists in Palo Alto.
Musk’s demand for staff to return to office has already met with backlash in Germany.
“Everyone at Tesla has to spend at least 40 hours a week in the office,” Musk wrote in his Tuesday email. “If you do not come, we will assume that you have resigned.”
Musk tweeted: “Recessions play a key role in economic reform” in response to Farquhar’s tweet encouraging Tesla employees to look into its remote working conditions.
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