- Tesla's advertising comes just a few months after it started.
- According to Bloomberg, Tesla has laid off about 40 marketing and advertising staff.
- The move is part of ongoing job cuts announced by CEO Elon Musk last week.
Tesla appears to have exited its short-lived marketing team.
Bloomberg reports that the company has cut its entire U.S. “growth content” team in recent layoffs. The team included a group of about 40 people, the paper said.
Tesla still has a small number of marketing employees based in Europe, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Elon Musk told employees last week that Tesla would lay off more than 10% of its workforce.
Many of the affected Tesla employees were informed within hours of Musk's internal email that their roles were being eliminated. The layoff notices continued until later in the week. Business Insider previously reported that several recruiters at the company were notified by phone on Friday that their roles had been reduced.
For most of their history, electric car companies have survived without any traditional advertising. Instead, it has relied on word of mouth and Mr. Musk's posts to promote its products to its 181.5 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter.
However, things changed when Musk first announced at a shareholder event in May of last year that he would “try out some advertising and see how it goes.”
Musk, who has publicly said he hates advertising, agreed to the move at the request of Tesla investors, who argued the company needed to be more like Apple. Last year, the company released what is believed to be its first-ever ad.
The growth team, led by senior manager Alex Ingram, was first launched just about four months ago, Bloomberg reported.
Tesla's decision to cut its marketing team comes after Tesla's sales have slumped and the company reported lower-than-expected vehicle deliveries earlier this month.
Tesla is scheduled to release its latest quarterly results on Tuesday, just days after announcing vehicle price cuts.
