Tesla is eliminating dozens of positions at its SolarCity office in Northern California
Company says it’s centralising its sales, support and IT operations
Tesla has announced it is phasing out 63 positions at a SolarCity office in the Northern California suburb of Roseville.
The move comes during Tesla’s continued integration with SolarCity, following the electric-car company’s multibillion-dollar acquisition of the solar-energy business late last year.
A total of 204 positions were being phased out at the Roseville facility. SolarCity announced a reduction of 141 positions there last month, according to documents the company filed with the California Employment Development Department.
The Roseville office will remain open.
Tesla confirmed the moves in an email to Business Insider on Monday:
"We are centralising the sales, customer support and information technology operations currently located in Roseville, California. Some employees at the Roseville location will remain in their current role or transition to new positions, and we’ve worked to provide as much notice as we can to those employees whose roles are impacted. All employees will continue to receive their normal pay and benefits until the transition takes place at the end of October. We are encouraging impacted employees to apply for open positions in our workforce across the country as the business continues to grow."
SolarCity co-founder Peter Rive left the company in July, months after his brother, Lyndon, left to start a new venture. The Rive brothers are cousins of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Tesla said of Peter Rive’s departure at the time, “As co-founder and CTO of SolarCity, Pete has played an instrumental role in expanding access to solar to hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Pete’s responsibilities, including work on Solar Roof, will be distributed among Tesla’s existing engineering teams.”
The solar market has evolved in fits and starts in the US this year. Solar installations rose eight per cent in the second quarter, but that growth was expected to be short-lived, Reuters reported, citing an industry report from GTM Research. The market is forecast to decline by about 17 per cent for the year, thanks in part to weaker residential demand.
