Tesla Lays Off Roughly 200 Autopilot Staff in California: Report

Tesla has shut down a San Mateo office in California, resulting in hundreds of Autopilot staff being laid off, reports Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

The Tesla office saw Autopilot employees examine customer car data related to the company’s Autopilot feature suite, and “data labelling” incoming information from customer vehicles.

Sources say close to 200 staff were let go, and notified on Tuesday, with many data annotation specialists. The San Mateo office employed about 350 staff, with some transferring to a nearby facility.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said earlier this month the company would be cutting 10% of its salaried staff, but also increasing the number of hourly workers.

Speaking later at the Qatar Economic Forum last week, Musk clarified the job cuts at Tesla would affect only 3.5% of its total workforce, calling the numbers “not super material”.