Tesla published its first-ever diversity report on Friday, which shows the automaker’s US leadership is 83 percent male, and 59 percent white. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Impact report shows that men represent 79 percent of Tesla’s workforce, and women 21 percent.
“While women are historically underrepresented in the tech and automotive industries, we recognize we have work to do in this area,” the report states. “Increasing women’s representation at all levels, especially in leadership, is a top priority in 2021.”
The company also acknowledges in the report that Black employees are underrepresented— only 10 percent of the workforce and 4 percent of leadership at Tesla are Black or African-American. “We know that our numbers do not represent the deep talent pools of Black and African American talent that exist in the US at every level,” the report states.
The company says Black and African-American employees made up 12 percent of new hires at the company in 2020, which is a 9 percent increase from 2019. It plans to conduct more recruitment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and provide its managers and recruiters with unconscious bias training, according to the report.
Asian employees make up 21 percent of Tesla’s workforce and 25 percent of company leadership, and Hispanic or Latino/Latina employees represent 22 percent of its total workforce, but only 4 percent of leadership.
Tesla’s report is somewhat incomplete, however; it does not detail attrition or retention rates at the company, or provide details about how many of its employees identify as non-binary or gender nonconforming, or, how many identify as having a disability.
