The company cut its entire US “growth content” team in its recent round of layoffs, according to a report from Bloomberg. The team included a group of about 40 people, the publication said.
Tesla still has a small group of marketing employees based 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 he was laying off more than 10% of Tesla’s workforce.
Many impacted Tesla workers were notified within hours of Musk’s internal email that their roles had been eliminated. The layoff notices continued late into the week. On Friday, several recruiters at the company were notified via a phone call that their roles had been cut, Business Insider previously reported.
For most of its history, the electric vehicle company has survived without any 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, formerly known as Twitter.
But that all changed last May when Musk announced 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 senior manager Alex Ingram, first launched only about four months ago, Bloomberg reported.
Tesla’s decision to cut its marketing team comes after Tesla sales slumped, and the company reported lower-than-expected delivery numbers earlier this month.
Tesla will report its latest quarterly earnings on Tuesday, days after it announced it was slashing prices on its vehicles.
