By Dana Hull and Ed Ludlow | Bloomberg
Tesla Inc. has begun hiring back some of the almost 500 members of its Supercharging team that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk dismissed late last month.
Chief among the personnel who have returned is Max de Zegher, the director of charging for North America, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. De Zegher was one of the top managers after Rebecca Tinucci, the senior director Musk fired late last month along with virtually everyone else in the charging group.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many laid-off workers have been rehired. Musk and de Zegher didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
Musk’s dissolution of the team stunned the broader electric vehicle sector, as Superchargers arguably have been Tesla’s shrewdest product. In the past year, the company convinced competitors to embrace its plugs as an industry standard and signed agreements with many of the world’s biggest manufacturers to open its network to their customers.
After widespread blowback, Musk pledged last week to spend “well over” $500 million on growing Tesla’s network this year. Days earlier, the CEO said the company planned to add chargers at a slower pace and focus more on uptime and existing locations.
The @TeslaCharging account on X — the social media platform Musk owns — followed up Musk on May 10 with a post thanking charging site hosts and suppliers for their patience with the company amid its internal restructuring. De Zegher reposted the message.
Musk, 52, has walked back impulsive cost-cutting measures before. In 2019, he announced Tesla was going to close most of its stores and shift sales online, blindsiding much of his sales team. Ten days later — after landlords refused to let the company out of its leases — the CEO backtracked and raised vehicle prices.
A similar situation played out at Twitter in late 2022: Soon after Musk laid off roughly half the company, dozens of employees were asked to return.
Tesla unveiled its first Superchargers in September 2012, shortly after the carmaker started producing the Model S sedan. The company now has more than 6,200 stations and 57,000 connectors worldwide.
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