AUSTIN, Texas — One of Travis County's largest employers, Tesla, plans to lay off 10% of its global workforce to cut costs.
The news from CEO Elon Musk was delivered to staff in an email Monday morning, according to the New York Times.
Impacts from the news are already being felt in the Austin area, where Tesla's Gigafactory employs about 20,000 people.
Ezkel Love said working there was like the American dream coming true for him.
“I got an email saying I was terminated, and they made a decision to let go 10% of the workforce," Love said. “They’re supposed to be leading in innovation ... That would have been the best opportunity for me to learn manufacturing.”
Love said he was hired a month ago to assemble the Tesla Model Y cars at the plant near Del Valle. Love's termination letter said Tesla is reducing the number of staff at the Austin factory, but an email from Musk to employees said layoffs will be global. The letter states Tesla is getting rid of overfilled jobs due to the company's massive growth.
RELATED: Report: Tesla laying off thousands of employees worldwide, cutting hours for some Austin employees
“No warning at all. I don’t have a job ... Can’t pay my rent. So, I’ve got to find something else to do to make ends meet,” Love said.
While Love said he was blindsided, Electrek Editor-in-Chief Fred Lambert said the publication had heard rumblings about the news for months.
“Since December," Lambert said. "More January and February, where Tesla delayed a lot of performance reviews and reduced some salary bonds and took away some stock options ... A lot of things that lead to layoffs.
Tesla claims the layoffs may be due to over-hiring, but Lambert said there could be more reasons behind them, like the company's performance last quarter. While Lambert said electric vehicle sales are still good worldwide, Tesla had a bad first quarter this year.
“There has to be a few tens of thousands of vehicles that should have been sold and haven't been sold. That's worrying for Tesla investors,” Lambert said.
RELATED: Tesla sales tumble nearly 9%, most in 4 years, as competition heats up and demand for EVs slows
According to Lambert, production for Tesla's next-generation electric cars, meant to be affordable, has been delayed because of the Cybertruck. That means no meaningful growth is happening and the layoffs could be compensating for a loss of money.
“Tesla might lose money for the first time in years," Lambert said. "Now they want to make sure that doesn't happen in Q2 if they have a similar performance in terms of vehicle deliveries."
While Lambert said Tesla is still growing and hiring people, employees like Love are being left behind.
“They should give us a heads up about how things are going on with the companies instead of hiring a bunch of people and then letting them go,” Love said.
Love said he hasn't been able to contact human resources for a clearer answer to what happened. He also said the move will affect those with children and others who travel from far away to work at Giga Texas.
KVUE reached out to Tesla for comment but did not hear back.
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown