Elon Musk Speaks At Qatar Economic Forum

Tesla Technoking Elon Musk, along with the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, were a few speakers at the Qatar Economic Forum on its second day, Al Jazeera reports. Bloomberg hosted the forum and focuses primarily on the need to diversify the world’s economy and develop the renewable energy sector. Al Jazeera noted that the forum isn’t just looking at these things from a financial perspective. Topics such as the environment or the role of politics and human rights in developing economies are also a focus here.

Elon Musk spoke about a variety of topics, from Twitter and AI to Tesla. Bloomberg shared some key takeaways from Elon Musk’s speech. Elon Musk pointed out that a recession in the U.S. “is inevitable at some point. As to whether there is a recession in the near-term, that is more likely than not.” He also shared more details on the recent Tesla job cuts. “Tesla is reducing its salaried workforce roughly 10% over the next three months or so. We expect to grow our hourly workforce. We grew very fast on the salaried side, grew a little too fast in some areas.

“A year from now, I think our headcount will be higher both in salaried and hourly” workers, but for now the headcount reduction will be ‘3% to 3.5%.’”

He also said that Tesla is reducing the salaried workforce by 10% over the next three months or so while the hourly workforce will grow.

One thing that is holding up Tesla’s growth is global supply constraints, as indicated many times before. Elon Musk said that this was a bigger issue than competition from rival automakers. “Our constraints are much more in raw materials and being able to scale up production.”

In his opening remarks, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani emphasized the importance of supporting the economy, investments, and innovation while maintaining peace.

“Supporting the economy and investments and innovation while keeping shared values and maintaining peace is the way to build capabilities to overcome the challenges that the whole of humanity faces.”