-=TSLA : company to cut 7% of workforce, the road ahead 'very difficult'

• CEO Elon Musk announced plans in a letter to cut co's full-time employee headcount by approx. 7%; these cuts, says Musk, must be made while increasing the production rate of Model 3 vehicles and improving manufacturing and engineering, and co's road ahead is projected to be "very difficult"; preliminary Q4 figures indicate that co made a GAAP profit in the quarter, but a lesser profit than that realized in Q3; Musk says that co needs to reach more customers who are able to afford its vehicles, especially with changes to tax credits ahead.
• The least-expensive version of the Model 3 now available costs $44,000. Mr. Musk said in a companywide email that he wanted the lowest-priced Model 3 to sell for $35,000.
• The cuts, which could put more than 3,000 people out of work, follow a 9 percent reduction in Tesla’s staff in June. Another of Mr. Musk’s companies, the privately held rocket maker SpaceX, said this month that it would shrink its work force by about 10 percent.

As Tesla struggled last year to cope with a Model 3 production and delivery process that Mr. Musk has described as “hell,” his behavior created distractions for the company.

In August, he wrote in a short, cryptic post on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private and had “funding secured,” surprising board members and driving up the stock price.

The Securities and Exchange Commission later sued Mr. Musk in federal court, saying he had misled investors. He settled with the agency, agreeing to pay a $20 million fine and to step aside as chairman for three years.