Elon Musk tightens his grip on Tesla with personal approval for hiring

Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken an unprecedented step to tighten his control over the company’s hiring decisions. According to an email obtained by Reuters, Musk has personally approved all new hires, including contractors.

The move comes as the electric carmaker faces its lowest quarterly gross margin in two years amid a sluggish US economy and mounting competition. Last year, Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about the economic outlook and planned to cut 10% of salaried jobs at the company.

Despite the job cuts, Tesla ended the year with 127,855 employees, an increase of 30% over the prior year. To help manage the company’s growth, Musk recently hired Linda Yaccarino, former head of publicity for NBCUniversal, as Tesla’s new chief executive.

In his email, Musk urged executives to “think carefully” before sending him hiring requests and asked them to send out a list of requests weekly. It is expected that with the hiring of Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter, Musk Musk will spend more time running Tesla.

The billionaire is expected to address Tesla shareholders on Tuesday at the automaker’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas. It remains to be seen how Musk’s personal approval mandate will affect the company’s hiring decisions going forward.