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Elon Musk appears to be moving ahead with his plans to cut around 10 per cent of Tesla's workforce.

On June 3, Reuters reported that the Tesla CEO had told staff in an email that he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy, and instructed executives to "pause all hiring worldwide".

In a separate email, Musk shared that he intended to lay off a tenth of salaried staff as the company had become "overstaffed in many areas".

Tesla had around 100,000 employees at the end of 2021, according to Reuters.

No country manager for Singapore

One of the 10 per cent of employees that were laid off was Christopher Bousigues, Tesla Singapore's country manager.

Bousigues revealed this in a LinkedIn post on June 12. He had moved to Singapore for the role in 2021.

In his post, he shared that he was proud to have been Tesla's first country manager in Southeast Asia, helping to establish the business in Singapore.

Some of his achievements include setting up two Tesla showrooms here, one service centre, developing a network of superchargers islandwide, making the Tesla Model 3 "a common sight in the Singapore car landscape", and launching the Model Y on June 10.

Bousignes added:

"I wish to sincerely thank all those that have supported me on this journey.

When something like this happens, you wonder what is the best course of action, and whether to remain discreet or even silent about it. Ultimately that is not how I am built. Transparency and honesty are non-negotiable to me, so sharing this news felt like the right thing to do with my network. I profoundly believe that when a door closes, a gate somewhere else opens."

You can read his full post here.

The Straits Times reported that Tesla Singapore will not have a new country manager.

Tesla Hong Kong will then oversee Singapore operations.

No remote working for Tesla employees

Musk had previously also issued his company's employees an ultimatum — that they must return to the office or risk termination.

He stated in an email that those who wished to work remotely needed to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week, "or depart Tesla".

Musk further stated that the employees needed to work from a "main" Tesla office and not a "remote branch office", barring employees from working at an office in a location unrelated to their duties.

If employees did not show up to their designated office, it would be taken as a sign that they had resigned.

Top photo from Zm W / Google Maps