Tesla has acquired parts of bankrupted automation engineering firm Manz based in Germany. It will on board about 300 of its employees.
Manz is a “German multinational engineering company active in the fields of automation, laser processesing, metrology, wet chemistry and roll-to-roll processing.”
The company has filed for bankruptcy protection and announced today that it signed an agreement with Tesla Automation, a subsidiary of Tesla, to acquire parts of its assets.
Interestingly, Tesla’s Automation group was first created out of the acquisition of another German engineering firm, Grohmann.
Manz announced that Tesla will on board about 300 of its employees and take over its operations at its Reutlingen site:
Manz AG’s insolvency administrator and Tesla Automation GmbH, based in Prüm, a subsidiary of the US electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, Inc., Austin (USA), have signed a purchase agreement on 24 February 2025. Tesla Automation, which specializes in the construction of special-purpose machines at its three German locations, intends to operate an additional location in Reutlingen in the future. For this purpose, Tesla Automation will take over more than 300 employees at the Reutlingen site and acquire movable tangible assets. Tesla Automation will also use the Manz company property in Reutlingen. The completion of the transaction is still subject to the approval of the German Federal Cartel Office under merger control law. The insolvency estate will receive the proceeds of the sale. The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price.
It sounds like those operations were similar to Tesla’s ongoing operations at its automation group, who design and build manufacturing equipment for the automaker.
Lothar Thommes, Managing Director at Tesla Automation, commented on the announcement:
“We are gaining qualified employees with a high level of expertise in high-tech mechanical engineering. The Reutlingen site is an ideal complement to the continued successful implementation of our global automation projects in the Tesla Group. We are very pleased to be realizing future innovations there.”
Tesla is not onboarding all employees from the specific Manz group. About 100 people are expected to lose their jobs.
The two companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal.