By Senad Karaahmetovic

Elon Musk again used Twitter to confirm that Tesla (NASDAQ) plans to grow its total workforce over the next 12 months. However, the number of employees who are paid is unlikely to change.

Musk had just 2 days earlier stated that Musk must reduce 10% of his workforce.

“Total headcount will increase, but salaried should be fairly flat,” Musk replied to an unverified Twitter account that forecasted that the electric vehicle maker’s total headcount would rise in the next 12 months.

Musk sent an email on Thursday to Tesla executives. It stated that he was very worried about the U.S. and wanted to decrease 10% of the workforce at Tesla.

A day later, Tesla’s boss sent a separate email to employees where he said the carmaker plans to cut salaried headcount by 10% as the company has become “overstaffed in many areas,” though “hourly headcount will increase,” he wrote.

The world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) company and its subsidiaries had nearly 100,000 employees at the end of 2021, according to the company’s regulatory filing.

Musk sent an email on Wednesday to Tesla staff, asking for at least 40 hours of work per week. Those who do not come back to the office, “we will assume you have resigned,” Musk wrote.

Mark Delaney, analyst at Goldman Sachs calculates that a 10% reduction in workforce would result in $0.225 to $1.0 billion annual opex savings.

“Mr. Musk’s comments on Twitter of salaried headcount being fairly flat suggest the company’s plan is to limit cost growth and not reduce opex overall,” Delaney said in a client note.

“Our base case assumption is for opex including SBC to rise by an average of about $255 mn per qtr from 2Q22 through 4Q22, by $1.9 bn in 2022 yoy, and by $2.6 bn in 2023 yoy. Each $100 mn of opex is about $0.06-$0.08 of EPS.”