Tesla says women make up a fifth of its US workforce

SAN FRANCISCO • Women comprise 17 per cent of Tesla's US leadership roles and 21 per cent of the overall workforce, the electric-car maker disclosed in its first US diversity report.

"While women are historically under-represented in the tech and automotive industries, we recognise we have work to do in this area," the company said in its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Impact Report.

It said that overall, minorities and others from under-represented communities make up more than half of its employees in the United States and a third of its directors and vice-presidents.

Black, African-American, Hispanic, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native communities collectively represent 60 per cent of the company's US workforce and 33 per cent of its senior managers, the company said via a blog post last Friday.

The firm said leadership roles were a "very small cohort", or less than 0.4 per cent, of its workforce.

Black and African-American employees make up a 10th of its US workforce, the report said.

Mr Elon Musk's Tesla, whose meteoric rise has seen it become the most valuable auto company in the world and worth about US$550 billion (S$734 billion), acknowledged the lack of representation.

"We know that our numbers do not represent the deep talent pools of black and African-American talents that exist in the US at every level - from high-school graduates to professionals," it said.

Tesla, based in Palo Alto, California, said it planned to increase representation of all under-represented groups next year and would be recruiting at historically black colleges and universities.

Nasdaq filed a proposal with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last Tuesday that, if approved, would require all its listed companies to adopt new rules related to board diversity.

The rules would require most of the companies to have, or publicly explain why they do not have, at least two diverse directors, including one who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an under-represented minority or LGBTQ+.

Tesla has over 60,000 employees globally but has never publicly disclosed its US diversity statistics until now, making it a bit of an outlier in Silicon Valley.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG