Tesla lays off its new marketing team months after launching it: report
- Tesla slashed its marketing department just months after making new hires.
- The company has eliminated about 40 marketing and advertising staff, Bloomberg reported.
Tesla appears to have pulled the plug on its short-lived marketing team.
The company cut its entire US "growth content" team in its most recent round of layoffs, Bloomberg reported. The team was a group of about 40 people, the outlet said.
Tesla still has a small group of marketing employees in Europe, a person with knowledge of the issue told Bloomberg.
Elon Musk responded to a post on X that said the laid-off staff "could've done a better job with their ads."
"Exactly. The ads were far too generic – could've been any car," Musk wrote in response.
Musk told staff last week that Tesla was laying off more than 10% of its workforce.
Many impacted Tesla workers were notified that their roles had been eliminated within hours of Musk's announcement. Layoff notices continued late into the week. On Friday, several recruiters at the company were notified that their roles had been cut, Business Insider previously reported.
For most of its history, the electric-vehicle company has survived without using traditional advertising, instead relying on word of mouth and posts from Musk, who promotes his company's products to his 181.5 million followers on X.
But last May, Musk said at a shareholder event that, for the first time, he would "try out a little advertising and see how it goes."
Musk, who has said he hates advertising, agreed to the move after Tesla investors called for it, with one arguing that the company needs to be more like Apple. The company released what appeared to be its first-ever ad last year.
The growth team, led by Alex Ingram, a senior manager, launched about four months ago, Bloomberg reported.
Tesla's decision to cut its marketing team comes after a vehicle-sales slump and the company reporting lower-than-expected delivery numbers earlier this month.
Tesla will report its latest quarterly earnings on Tuesday, just after it announced it was slashing prices on its vehicles.