Elon Musk's Tesla announces fourth week of layoffs as EV car maker continues to ... trends now

Elon Musk's Tesla has laid off staff from the software, service and engineering departments in a fourth week of job cuts as the EV car maker keeps shedding staff.

The move comes after Tesla announced it would cut the prices of three of its five models in the US as the company faces falling sales, stiff competition in the electric vehicle market and the recall of nearly 4,000 Cybertrucks due to a potentially fatal flaw with the accelerator.

In a damning blow,  Musk also announced Tesla would axe 10 percent of its global workforce of roughly 140,000 earlier this month, claiming the layoffs would 'enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.'

Employees at the automaker received emails over the weekend as part of broader layoffs - marking the fourth week similar emails were sent to staff, according to an Electrek report.

Tesla, whose shares were up more than 1 percent, has not publicly commented on the layoffs.

The company disclosed in notices last month that it will lay off more than 6,700 employees across its locations in Texas, California, Nevada and New York.

Tesla has been under pressure from dropping sales and an intensifying price war among automakers as elevated interest rates have slowed the adoption of electric vehicles.

Several analysts now expect Tesla's annual deliveries to fall for the first time in 2024 after years of double-digit growth. 

The company warned in January that delivery growth would be 'notably lower' this year, signaling that price cuts would be insufficient to lift demand.