Tesla’s 60-day Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notice and its layoffs of workers were to be expected. Elon Musk has previously said that 3%-3.5% of Tesla’s employees would be affected by layoffs that were mentioned in an email and reported last month.
Tesla recently filed a 60-day WARN notice according to reports. Reuters reported that Tesla will be laying off 229 employees at its San Mateo, California office and that Tesla is also permanently closing down the office.
Tesla enthusiast, @SawyerMerritt pointed out that Tesla filed the WARN notice and shared a screenshot from Bloomberg. He also added that a lot of the Tesla labeling systems are automated now and that Tesla can hire labelers in other, less expensive parts of the U.S. if they needed to.
UPDATE: Tesla Files 60-day Warn Notice For Autopilot Layoffs In CA.
The Layoffs Will Affect 229 Workers, San Mateo Office Closed – Bloomberg
Again, A lot of these Tesla labeling systems are automated now and Tesla can hire labelers in cheaper areas of the country if needed. https://t.co/5f3NZKWbkT pic.twitter.com/QtDZute5FY
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 12, 2022
TechCrunch noted that the San Mateo office employs 276 workers and that the remaining 47 might transfer to Tesla’s Buffalo Autopilot office.
This Was To Be Expected
It’s always painful when layoffs happen. In June Elon Musk sent an email to Tesla’s executives that Tesla was going to cut its employee headcount by 10%. Although there was no actual transcription of the email, Reuters said it had seen it. Elon Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about current economic conditions.
During his talk at the Qatar Economic Forum, Elon Musk shared more details about the job cuts. According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk said:
“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.”
He added that a year from now, he believed the headcount will be higher for both salaried and hourly workers. However, for the time being, the headcount reduction will be between 3%-3.5%.
Tesla Isn’t Alone With Laying Off Employees
According to a tally by Crunchbase News, over 28,000 workers in the U.S. tech industry have been laid off this year. Markets have been hit hard in 2022 and inflation isn’t helping matters any. Add in geopolitical drama for a bit of spice and we have a toxic economical brew.
Coinbase, Netflix, and even Microsoft have been laying off workers. Earlier today, Microsoft announced that it was cutting jobs and “realigning business groups and roles” although it’s also planning to grow its headcount.
If a company wants to survive a recession, then it is wise to cut back when it is necessary. This goes for any business trying to survive our current economy.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reiterates shocking xAI detail, and hints at an upcoming monster
He also announced that xAI’s upcoming model, Grok 5, will begin training very soon.

Elon Musk has reiterated a rather shocking tidbit about xAI’s impressive scores at the ARC-AGI benchmark.
He also announced that xAI’s upcoming model, Grok 5, will begin training very soon.
xAI results on the ARC-AGI benchmark
In a recent post on social media platform X, Greg Kamradt, President of the ARC Prize Foundation, noted that Grok 4 has been used in two SOTA submissions to the ARC-AGI V1 and V2 benchmarks. The submissions, which were the best that the foundation has encountered to date, were done using xAI’s large language model, Grok 4.
As per Kamradt, when asked about why the submissions were done using Grok 4, the authors stated that “It was the best model I used in testing.” Musk was evidently proud of this accomplishment, though he also highlighted that these accomplishments were attained with just Grok 4. This suggests that once Grok 5 is in the picture, xAI’s lead in the AI sector could become notable.
Grok 5 incoming
Elon Musk has shared a number of tidbits about Grok 5 as of late. In recent comments on X, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO stated that he believes Grok 5 has the potential to actually reach artificial general intelligence (AGI). This suggests that Grok 5 would be nothing short of a monster, as it could be capable of matching or surpassing human-level intelligence across tasks such as thinking, reasoning, and other domains by a substantial margin.
Grok 5 may also be coming soon. As per Musk in another post on X, xAI will be starting the training of Grok 5 in a few weeks. Musk definitely seems to be highly optimistic about the capabilities of Grok 5, with the CEO stating late last month that the update would be coming before the end of the year and that it will be “crushingly good.”
News
SpaceX is partnering with chipmakers to enable Starlink satellite-to-cell service
President Gwynne Shotwell outlined the effort during a space industry conference in Paris.

SpaceX is working with microchip manufacturers to integrate satellite-connectivity hardware into smartphones, advancing its plan for direct-to-device services through Starlink.
The move follows the company’s $17 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum from EchoStar Corp., a deal that positions SpaceX to operate more independently of traditional telecom carriers.
President Gwynne Shotwell outlined the effort during a space industry conference in Paris this week, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Starlink direct-to-device
Starlink currently serves millions of customers in over 100 countries, primarily through ground-based dishes. The company, however, is now expanding into satellite-to-cell service, which should enable unmodified phones to connect directly with orbiting satellites. While SpaceX has a partnership with T-Mobile US, the EchoStar spectrum purchase gives it more control to negotiate with global carriers on its own terms.
“We’re working with chip manufacturers to get the proper chips in phones,” the SpaceX President stated. “We will now be initiating discussions with telcos in a different way now. Now it’s our spectrum, but we want to work with them, almost providing capacity and wholesaling capacity to their customers.”
The company plans to launch satellites capable of supporting its direct-to-device business within two years, with early mobile phone testing expected by late 2026.
Starship program continues test flights
Shotwell also addressed SpaceX’s Starship program, which recently completed its 10th test flight in August. She said the mission met all objectives, providing a critical morale boost to teams after a challenging development year.
“My Starship team needed that win,” Shotwell noted. “Development programs always are kind of a 24/7 operation, and I was really pleased for them.”
SpaceX is planning to fly one more iteration of the current Starship prototype, known as V2, before transitioning to the next-generation V3 vehicle. That version, expected to debut late this year or early 2026, is designed to be more capable and support eventual crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.
“The V3, which we want to fly hopefully late this year, but maybe early next year, is really the vehicle that could take humans to the moon and Mars,” Shotwell stated.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk says xAI has a chance to reach AGI with Grok 5
The comment came after Grok 4 posted strong results on the ARC-AGI benchmark.

Elon Musk suggested this week that his artificial intelligence startup xAI has the potential to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) with the next version of its large language model, Grok 5.
The comment came after Grok 4 posted strong results on the ARC-AGI benchmark, which tests reasoning and problem-solving ability.
Musk sees Grok 5 as AGI candidate
In a post on X, user @amXFreeze shared the latest results of the ARC-AGI leaderboard, which showed Grok 4 outpacing rival systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT in problem-solving and open program synthesis tasks.
Musk reacted to the performance by stating that “I now think xAI has a chance of reaching AGI with Grok 5. Never thought that before.”
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) refers to an AI system that is capable of matching or surpassing human-level intelligence across tasks such as thinking, reasoning, and other domains by a notable margin, as noted in a report from Benzinga. AI companies today are actively pursuing AGI.
xAI’s speed
While xAI was only established in March 2023, the startup has grown aggressively. Since its founding, it has rapidly risen in the AI segment and its Grok large language model has become a mainstream option for everyday users, especially on social media platform X. The company is still growing aggressively, and it is currently expanding its Colossus supercomputer cluster in Memphis.
During xAI’s Engineering Open House event in San Francisco in its early days, Elon Musk highlighted that speed would be the company’s primary competitive edge. To highlight this, Musk stated that “No SR-71 Blackbird was ever shot down and it only had one strategy: to accelerate.” So far, xAI is definitely playing this role very well.
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