Elon Musk says Tesla will spend $500 mln to expand charging network

May 10 (Reuters) - Tesla will spend more than $500 million to expand its fast-charging network, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, days after abruptly laying off employees who were running the business.

"That's just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher," Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.

After the layoffs last week, Musk said that Tesla planned to expand the Supercharger network but at a slower pace for new locations.

EV makers have been adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard, making the company's superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival Combined Charging System.

However, Musk's decision to gut the electric-vehicle charging team is scrambling plans for rolling out new fast-charging stations and may delay President Joe Biden's efforts to electrify U.S. highways.

The Biden administration has doled out $5 billion to states over five years to build 500,000 EV chargers as part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, and Tesla has been among the biggest winners of those federal funds so far.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)