NO LOVE AT CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL

It a world where who has the gold, rules, it should come as no surprise that Denver, Colorado-based Chipotle Mexican Grill is laying off 399 employees in its Denver headquarters to relocate to Newport Beach, California where its newly appointed CEO Brian Niccol happens to live. 

Niccol, the former head of Irvine, California-based Taco Bell is said to be bringing key employees with him.  Niccol justified the move by saying, "The consolidation of offices and the move to California will help us drive sustainable growth while continuing to position us well in the competition for top talent." 

Among those being laid off include 73 technology analysts, 14 food safety coordinators, and two human resources directors. Support services will be consolidated in an existing facility in Columbus, Ohio while the corporate functions: operations, business development, marketing, communications, finance, supply chain, food safety, technology and human resources will be transitioned to Newport Beach. Operational support services will be consolidated at an existing office in Columbus, Ohio.

The company is closing the Denver office and another one in New York where 32 employees will lose their jobs. Even though employees are being offered the opportunity to relocate, living expenses in the posh Newport Beach area are prohibitive, especially when compared to Denver real estate values.

Are you wondering, Am I Next?

NO LOVE AT QUALCOMM (07/26/18)

JULY 26, 2018 -- QUALCOMM KILLS NXP SEMICONDUCTOR DEAL

Qualcomm apparently has killed the NXP Semiconductors deal for $44 billion due to Chinese regulators missing Qualcomm's self-imposed deadline. While Qualcomm will have to pay NXP a break-up fee of $2 billion, it appears that Qualcomm is planning to spend approximately $30 billion in a stock buy-back that will deliver additional value to Qualcomm shareholders.

Original post ...

San Diego, California-based communications chipmaker Qualcomm, Inc., continues its restructuring with the layoff of another 284 Jobs from the Data Center Chip Unit, 43 from their California team, and 241 employees at the company’s Raleigh, North Carolina data center. 

The chip unit designs manufactures, and markets processing chips for data-center servers.

According to published reports, the chipmaker was originally considering the sale of the unit but changed direction. Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon said, “Qualcomm remains committed to data-center opportunities and is not divesting the assets. We are reducing our investments in the data-center business but remain committed to our China joint venture [advanced server chipset technology 45% owned by Qualcomm, 55% owned by China] and refocusing our R&D efforts for upcoming compute opportunities at the edge of 5G networks and AI inference cloud chipsets.”

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?  

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT TESLA (04/23/24)

APRIL 23, 2024 — 6,020 LAYOFFS IN CALIFORNIA AND TEXAS

The company has announced it will lay off 6,020 employees including 3,332 jobs in California and 2,688 positions in Texas, starting June 14, 2024.

APRIL 16, 2024 — 10% GONE: 14,000+ TARGETED

A company-wide email from Elon Musk…

Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.

As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.

I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I’m deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission and we wish you well in your future opportunities. It is very difficult to say goodbye.

For those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are developing some of the most revolutionary technologies in auto, energy, and artificial intelligence. As we prepare the company for the next phase of growth, your resolve will make a huge difference in getting us there.

Thanks,

Elon

JUNE 29, 2022 — TESLA CLOSES SAN MATEO OFFICE, LAYS OFF 2290

Tesla has closed its office in San Mateo, California, and laid off 229 employees, mostly hourly employees working on its Autopilot driver-assistant system.

“Many people in Tesla's San Mateo office work on data annotation - reviewing and labeling various visuals collected from Tesla vehicles to teach the cars' Autopilot system how to handle certain kinds of road scenarios.”

JUNE 22, 2022 — MUSK REDUCES PROJECTED LAYOFFS TO 3%

Commenting on the projected 10% layoff, Tesla CEO Elon Musk now says the company is now aiming for a reduction of 3% to 3.5% of the workforce.

“We grew very fast on the salaried side. A year from now, I think our headcount will be higher” in salaried and hourly workers, but for now, the reduction will be 3% to 3.5%.

JUNE 3, 2022 — MUSK PROPOSES TO CUT TESLA WORKFORCE BY 10%

In an email to his executives, Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted he had a "super bad feeling" about the current economy and needs to "pause all hiring worldwide" and cut about 10% of salaried employees to address the company which has become “overstaffed in many areas."

Musk wrote, "Note, this does not apply to anyone actually building cars, battery packs, or installing solar. (i.e., hourly employees).

Not only is the economy becoming more challenging, but the competition for electric cars is facing entries from mass-market car makers who know how to build quality cars at scale.

This is a developing story.

JUNE 13, 2018 — Original post…

Tesla has told employees that it will cut approximately 9 percent of its salaried workforce, approximately 4,000 employees, in a “difficult but necessary” reorganization.

This should come as no surprise as Musk’s pattern and practice of over-promising and under-delivering, cross-collateralization with his other enterprises, and staggering cash burn is business as usual for a company that has never returned a proper profit and engages in fanciful futuristic imaginations when it comes time to raise more cash. If it weren’t for some of the solid people toiling to deliver results, this might look more and more like a government-subsidized Ponzi scheme. 

Previously in May 2018, Musk indicated that he wanted to flatten the company’s management structure – which seems odd because Musk is known as a micro-manager who sleeps on the production floor during problematical periods. It is not known whether or not he personally makes a significant engineering contribution other than to serve as Chief Cheerleader and Fundraiser. 

Musk’s email to Tesla employees … 

As described previously, we are conducting a comprehensive organizational restructuring across our whole company. Tesla has grown and evolved rapidly over the past several years, which has resulted in some duplication of roles and some job functions that, while they made sense in the past, are difficult to justify today.

As part of this effort, and the need to reduce costs and become profitable, we have made the difficult decision to let go of approximately 9% of our colleagues across the company. These cuts were almost entirely made from our salaried population and no production associates were included, so this will not affect our ability to reach Model 3 production targets in the coming months.

Given that Tesla has never made an annual profit in the almost 15 years since we have existed, profit is obviously not what motivates us. What drives us is our mission to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable, clean energy, but we will never achieve that mission unless we eventually demonstrate that we can be sustainably profitable. That is a valid and fair criticism of Tesla's history to date.

This week, we are informing those whose roles are impacted by this action. We made these decisions by evaluating the criticality of each position, whether certain jobs could be done more efficiently and productively, and by assessing the specific skills and abilities of each individual in the company. As you know, we are also continuing to flatten our management structure to help us communicate better, eliminate bureaucracy and move faster.

In addition to this company-wide restructuring, we've decided not to renew our residential sales agreement with Home Depot in order to focus our efforts on selling solar power in Tesla stores and online. The majority of Tesla employees working at Home Depot will be offered the opportunity to move over to Tesla retail locations.
I would like to thank everyone who is departing Tesla for their hard work over the years. I'm deeply grateful for your many contributions to our mission. It is very difficult to say goodbye. In order to minimize the impact, Tesla is providing significant salary and stock vesting (proportionate to length of service) to those we are letting go.

To be clear, Tesla will still continue to hire outstanding talent in critical roles as we move forward and there is still a significant need for additional production personnel. I also want to emphasize that we are making this hard decision now so that we never have to do this again.

To those who are departing, thank you for everything you've done for Tesla and we wish you well in your future opportunities. To those remaining, I would like to thank you in advance for the difficult job that remains ahead. We are a small company in one of the toughest and most competitive industries on Earth, where just staying alive, let alone growing, is a form of victory (Tesla and Ford remain the only American car companies who haven't gone bankrupt). Yet, despite our tiny size, Tesla has already played a major role in moving the auto industry towards sustainable electric transport and moving the energy industry towards sustainable power generation and storage. We must continue to drive that forward for the good of the world.

Thanks,
Elon  

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?