According to an internal email sent to company executives, Musk wants to lay off 10% of the company's workforce due to his concerns about the state of the global economy.
Musk wrote in an email that he has a "super bad feeling" about the state of the economy and ordered a freeze on new hires.
As of early Friday morning, there were more than 5,000 active new openings on the company's website.
According to last year's earnings report, there were 99,289 active employees at the end of 2011.
Early on Friday morning, the markets reacted negatively to the report of a 3.8% decline in the stock price ofTesla.
Forbes asked the company for comment, but they didn't reply.
$233 billion. According to Forbes, Musk is the richest person in the world at the moment. Over the past two months, the billionaire's net worth has fluctuated greatly as the saga over his planned acquisition of the social networking site has played out.
Just days after another controversial email allegedly written by Musk was leaked to the public, Musk called for job cuts at his company. In the email, the billionaire told the executives to return to work at least 40 hours a week from the office. When asked about people who want to work remotely, Musk said they should pretend to work somewhere else. Musk said last month that the factory workers in China were willing to work long hours, sometimes as late as 3 a.m., and not leave the factory if needed. He said that people are avoiding going to work in order to save money.
According to an exclusive, Musk wants to cut 10% of his job at the company.
Musk said that the staff can work somewhere else after the leaked emails ended their remote work.