By Thursday's close, Tesla closed down 3.54% to $173.74
The Zhitong Finance App learned that after several weeks of layoffs, Tesla (TSLA.US) first announced more than 10 autonomous driving and artificial intelligence jobs, showing signs of its workforce growth.
As of Thursday, the company's careers page listed 17 open positions in the San Francisco area's “Autonomous Driving and Robotics” division. These positions are mostly engineering jobs for Tesla's driver assistance programs, although two of them are artificial intelligence research positions.
Tesla's career website was largely vacant during the massive layoffs. These layoffs are expected to affect at least 10% of the company's employees and continue until June. In recent weeks, the company listed only three vacancies for manufacturing development projects offered in Texas, California, and Nevada.
In addition to jobs in Palo Alto, California, Tesla has also posted a small number of jobs related to service center training programs in several states.
Tesla CEO Musk ordered layoffs mainly due to the recent decline in electric vehicle sales, and this decline in sales has also had a broader impact on the entire automotive industry. At the same time as layoffs, he has also increased his focus on building robot taxis. Musk said he now mainly sees Tesla as an artificial intelligence, robotics, and sustainable energy company.
Prior to the layoffs, Musk claimed in a series of posts on the X platform that rival OpenAI had been “actively recruiting” Tesla engineers. He said Tesla had to pay more for its artificial intelligence engineering team and claimed that the team had “more than 200 outstanding engineers.”
The salary range for the new autonomous driving and robotics positions is wide-ranging — between $104,000 and $360,000 per year, and also includes cash and stock rewards and benefits.
Tesla already offers a product called “fully automated driving,” but it actually requires users to keep their hands on the wheel and watch the road. Musk has long promised that cars will soon be fully autonomous, but he also admits that perfecting this technology is much more difficult than he initially anticipated.
By Thursday's close, Tesla closed down 3.54% to $173.74.