Tesla managers were asked whether each of their employees' positions were critical, fueling fears of layoffs at the company, Bloomberg News reports.
Tesla sent out a one-line query for each job after canceling semiannual performance reviews for some employees, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, SEEbiz reports.
The electric car maker had 140,47 thousand employees globally as of December 31.
Tesla shares rose 2,7 percent in premarket trading, but have fallen more than 25 percent this year.
The report comes after CEO Elon Musk warned that sales growth will slow this year despite price cuts that have already hurt margins at the world's most valuable carmaker and fueled investor concerns about weak demand and Chinese competition.
Despite a new discounting effort led by Tesla, sales of new energy vehicles in China's top auto market posted their first month-on-month decline in January as demand slowed.
The U.S. automaker also lost its spot as the leading electric vehicle maker with a sale to China's BYD in the fourth quarter.
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