Businessinsider.com: According to Bloomberg, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is rehiring a few employees from the Supercharger team, which he disbanded two weeks ago.
According to The Information, Musk said last month that he was disbanding the group responsible for Tesla’s network of Supercharger charging stations in an email to his employees. However, Musk has changed his mind.
Bloomberg said on Monday, citing people with knowledge of the situation, that Musk had brought back a few employees from Supercharger, including Max de Zegher, Tesla’s charging director for North America.
According to his LinkedIn page, the seasoned Tesla employee joined the firm in 2013 and has worked for the electric vehicle manufacturer for more than ten years. Prior to concentrating on Tesla’s charging infrastructure in the UK, Europe, and North America, De Zegher worked in sales.
Daily24blogs | thenextmoments | growingbaker | travelstray | interiordesignforhome | lifepointcity | JustLifePhoto
Lack of Response from Musk and de Zegher’s Representatives
When Bloomberg asked Musk and de Zegher’s representatives for comments, they didn’t reply. According to the source, how many Supercharger employees had been reinstated at the time needed to be clarified.
Initially, Tesla investors, partners, and customers were taken aback by Musk’s decision to fire the Supercharger team. Specifically, Musk’s action left big automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz hanging since they had embraced Tesla’s charging technology.
“No one from the group we collaborated with is left. “We haven’t received any official communication from Tesla,” said Aaron Luque, CEO of EnviroSpark, a company that installs Tesla chargers, in an interview with Tom Carter of Business Insider.
For more information, please visit https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-realized-he-needs-his-supercharger-team-after-all-2024-5
Additionally, a delay in the development of Tesla’s charging infrastructure would be detrimental to President Joe Biden’s clean energy plan. The Biden administration announced in February 2022 that it would provide $5 billion in funds to construct 500,000 EV chargers inside the United States.
Politico stated in February that Tesla benefited greatly from federal financing and received nearly 13% of all EV charging awards from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package, citing data it had reviewed. Globally, the corporation operates over 50,000 Superchargers.
Significant criticism of the breakup of the Supercharger team may have significantly influenced Musk’s decision to change his mind. The billionaire has been trying to contain the damage for the last two weeks by reassuring them time and time again that Tesla’s superchargers will not disappear.
“Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations,” Musk stated in a post to X on April 30.
Musk emphasized Tesla’s commitment to expanding its Supercharger network via his social media channels on Friday.
“Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year,” Musk stated in a tweet. “That’s just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher.”
Musk’s apparent reversal of his attitude regarding Tesla’s Supercharger business highlights the difficulties he faces in his attempt to recast the automaker as a leader in software.
Musk revealed in an X post on April 5 that Tesla will unveil its much-anticipated robotaxi on August 8. Even last month, Tesla’s CEO hinted to investors that the company’s Optimus robots might end up being its most valuable asset.
We should regard ourselves as a robotics or AI firm. During an April 23 earnings call, Musk stated, “If you value Tesla as just like an auto company, fundamentally, it’s just the wrong framework.”
Tesla representatives did not immediately answer an outside-of-regular-business-hours request for a response from BI.