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Tesla Cuts Global Workforce by Over 10%

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Tesla is laying off thousands of employees as it tries to simultaneously cut costs and boost productivity, according to an internal email sent to staff by CEO Elon Musk, Electrek and Bloomberg News reported. The electric automaker is cutting “more than 10%” of its global headcount, Musk said in the email. Tesla finished 2023 with over 140,000 employees, meaning the cuts could impact more than 14,000 people. The company has warned investors that sales growth could be “notably lower” in 2024 than its stated goal of 50% growth each year. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle,” Musk wrote.

ChowNow Acquires Y Combinator-Backed Cuboh POS, Implements Staff Reduction

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ChowNow snaps up YC-backed POS platform Cuboh and is laying off staffChowNow, the online ordering platform and marketing service for local restaurants, acquired Cuboh, a Y Combinator-backed point-of-sale (POS) platform that consolidates all orders from delivery apps into one place. This marks ChowNow’s first acquisition, which will help strengthen its POS integration solution and help restaurants tackle orders across multiple services. Meanwhile, Cuboh’s entire 30-person team — including marketing, sales, product and engineering — is transitioning to ChowNow. Starting next week, restaurant owners can access a newly launched bundle, “ChowNow + Cuboh,” for $275 per month. “It’s getting back to the longer-term product vision of what we’re building, of being the only platform restaurants need for their entire takeout business,” Webb said.

Fisker Cuts 15% of Workforce and Reserves Additional Funds for Challenging Times Ahead

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Fisker is laying off 15% of staff and says it needs more cash ahead of a “difficult year”Electric vehicle startup Fisker is planning to lay off 15% of its workforce and says it likely does not have enough cash on hand to survive the next 12 months. “[W]e have put a plan in place to streamline the company as we prepare for another difficult year,” founder and CEO Henrik Fisker said in a statement. Fisker said Thursday that it finished 2023 with $396 million in cash, though $70 million of that is restricted. The company says it is talking with one of its lenders about making “an additional investment” in the company. Fisker has also been dealing with a number of problems with its Ocean SUV, its only model so far, as TechCrunch reported earlier this month.

“Apple Discontinues Development of Self-Driving Car and Implements Workforce Reduction”

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Apple is scuttling its secretive, long-running project to build an autonomous electric car, according to Bloomberg. The company has already started laying off some people who worked on the project, TechCrunch has learned. Many of the nearly 2,000 employees who were still working on the project will be shifted to Apple’s generative AI projects, Bloomberg reported. The decision to kill the project comes at a time when major automakers are reevaluating their investments in electric vehicles, and amid increased scrutiny on autonomous vehicle projects. Apple first started working on its car project, known internally as “Project Titan,” in 2014.

“Massive Job Reduction: Sony to Cut 900 Positions in PlayStation Division”

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Sony is laying off around 900 employees in its PlayStation division, the company announced on Tuesday. The cuts will impact 8% of the division’s global workforce, as Sony becomes the latest company to announce major cuts in recent weeks and months. The layoffs come two weeks after Sony cut its sales forecast for the PlayStation 5 after warning of decreasing demand. Sony isn’t the only company in the gaming business to announce recent job cuts. Last month, Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees and Unity laid off 25% of its workforce.

Twitch to Terminate 500 More Employees from Its Workforce

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The Amazon-owned livestreaming platform will cut 35% of its staff, or roughly 500 employees, Bloomberg reports, and will announce the reduction as early as this week. Shortly after Twitch co-founder and longtime CEO Emmett Shear handed the reigns to its now-CEO Dan Clancy, the company laid off 400 employees. Twitch faces steep operating costs to support livestream content at such a large scale. In a 2022 blog post, Clancy stated that each high-volume streamer on Twitch costs the company about $1,000 per month, citing Amazon Web Service’s interactive video rates. “Delivering high definition, low latency, always available live video to nearly every corner of the world is expensive,” Clancy wrote.