Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss. The Critical.
Crossroads the shape SpaceX Tesla X.
The boring. Company.
And Neuralink, I'm your host. Will Walden.
Tesla has posted new job openings for its Autopilot team
following a period of extensive layoffs.
Nearly 20 positions have been listed, indicating that the
company's reduction in workforce might be concluding.
And these roles are all based in Palo Alto, CA and predominantly
focus on Full Self Driving software or his AI software for
all vehicles made by Tesla. Now, the job title suggests a
strong emphasis on software engineering and artificial
intelligence. Positions include research
engineer for foundation models and several software engineer
roles. Specializing in areas like slam
front end AI tooling, back end AI tooling, and full stack model
evaluation points to a significant push towards
enhancing Tesla's autonomous driving capabilities.
Now among the listed positions, Tesla is seeking a machine
learning engineer for 3D computer vision and self
driving. The role involves developing new
formulations and architectures for computer vision tasks and
large scale training of deep neural networks.
The goal is to build a unified vector space for various
autonomous driving tasks such as occupancy and geometry
detection. Now, the Machine Learning
Engineer role also includes designing metrics, tasks and
data sets to support perception and autonomy, and deploying
models at scale to millions of Tesla vehicles globally.
This highlights Tesla's focus on improving its FSD tech through
robust software engineering practices.
Now, Tesla's recent hiring activity follows a huge
reduction in this workforce. 14,000 people.
And earlier this month, the company removed over 3000 job
posting from its website. It came shortly after Tesla CEO
Elon Musk announced plans to cut more than 10% of the company's
global workforce. The layoffs included various
departments and even led to the rehiring of some Supercharger
staff after they were initially let go.
Additionally, Tesla began rescinding offers for full time
employees and interns in May, and the company stringent
measures reduced their headcount and costs.
Now, Musk emphasize the need for aggressive headcount and cost
reduction. During an April meeting with
executives, he said it's absolutely hardcore about
headcount and cost reduction right now, aligning with a
broader strategy to navigate through the industry wide
slowdown in EV sales. Now, despite these layoffs,
Tesla's focus on Autopilot and FSD technologies appear
unwavering. Musk has positioned these
technologies as pivotal to the company's future growth.
He stated that Tesla is between two major growth waves, with the
self driving technology being a key driver of the next phase.
Now, in addition to the job postings, Tesla is also dealing
with legal challenges related to Musk's compensation package.
A Delaware judge recently voided Musk's $56 billion pay package,
leading to concerns about potential legal maneuvers by
Tesla and Musk to contest the ruling in another jurisdiction.
Legal team representing shareholders in the case
requested assurances from Chancellor Kathleen McCormick
that Tesla would not attempt to undermine her ruling through a
vote or in account another court now.
McCormick expressed confidence in Tesla's commitment to respect
to ruling, noting the company statements in court as
reassuring. Tesla's shareholders are set to
vote on June 13th to decide on the ratification of Musk's pay
package and the potential reincorporation of the company
in Texas. The outcome of this vote could
have significant implications for Tesla's corporate governance
and Musk's role in the company. Musk has actively campaigned for
shareholder support ahead of the vote, offering factory tours to
those who vote on his compensation package.
So if you vote on a package, you get a factory tour.
Is that a win? I don't know.
It's importance of Musk, places that Musk places on securing
approval for his pay and maintaining his leadership
position within Tesla. Some people would love a factory
tour. Myself, I think it would be very
cool. But is that worth your vote if
you're going to vote against this and do your morals get in
the way and you're just like, you know what, I just want to go
for a factory tour. That might be a fun time.
And then you vote for the compensation package.
What else could Musk offer them? I mean he's not going to offer
him any of his money so he's going to do something free
basically or very low cost to give them a factory tour.
Maybe meet Elon during the factory tour.
I'm not sure if that's actually going to happen or not.
We will see in the future though if people vote for this.
The vote is seen as a reflection on Musk's leadership, though,
with some investors expressing concerns about their involvement
in other ventures and the impact of his public statements on
Tesla's reputation and sales. Musk offer a factory tours is a
very unusual move aim at garnering support from
shareholders. It would be pretty cool to see a
Tesla factory though to be honest with you.
I've been to a few Tesla factories, never been inside but
been to a few, never been on the work floor but have seen what
goes on in there. And Tesla's shareholder base
includes a significant portion of retail investors with 44% of
its common stock held by non professional shareholders.
This is the highest among the ten largest companies in the S&P
500 by market capitalization. And this is a unique composition
of Tesla investor community right now.
Now there's a proxy advisory firm, Glass Lewis, and they've
recommended that Tesla shareholders reject Musk's pay
package, citing his numerous other commitments and the
demanding nature of his projects.
You know, projects like SpaceX or X slash Twitter or the Boring
Company or any of the other multiple things that Elon has
going on. This recommendation adds another
layer of complexity to the upcoming vote.
It's on June 13th, and these job postings and Musk's efforts to
rally shareholders, it's a challenging time for the
company. A combination of layoffs, legal
battles, and the critical shareholder vote represents a
significant moment for Tesla in its future direction.
Can't Elon pull this off? Can the board pull this off?
I think they can. They're going to get through
this fine and it's going to be all right in the end, and
Tesla's going to thrive. And as Tesla navigates these
challenges, the company's commitment to advancing its
autonomous driving technology remains evident.
Because the new hires for the Autopilot team are going to play
a critical role in pushing the boundaries of Tesla's Full Self
Driving software. And also for the robo taxi,
We're going to see how that turns out too, because that's
where Elon and company are headed.
Instead of the $25,000 car, they're betting everything on
higher end cars but allowing you to use your own vehicle as kind
of an Uber. But you don't actually have to
be in the car to be the driver. The car drives itself.
Pretty amazing. It is earn money on the side as
your car is parked usually now. Tesla's recent job postings for
the Autopilot team and legal disputes over Musk's
compensation and the upcoming shareholder vote all indicate a
period of transition for Musk and Tesla and the determination
for the electric vehicle maker as it seeks to solidify its
position in the industry as continuing to be the number one
automotive EV maker in the world.
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