Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla. His cousins founded SolarCity as a solar panel production and installation company. Two years ago, Tesla bought the company for $2.6 billion. Now, they are closing 13-14 facilities. This comes after Tesla decided to reduce its workforce by 9 percent. The company also ended SolarCity’s distribution deal with Home Depot. Their agreement with Home Depot generated nearly half of the company’s sales.
State of the Company
Tesla has not announced which facilities they are going to close. They will, however, still have approximately 60 SolarCity installation facilities after the closures. Musk said that their battery and solar operations will remain as large as their automotive division.
At the end of 2015, SolarCity had approximately 15,000 employees. They and Tesla have been drastically reducing its workforce since then. Tesla is also in the process of moving SolarCity products and services to their other product lines. They already sell solar panels via their own retailers. They, therefore, don’t want to compete with themselves by selling via Home Depot.
