May 10 (Reuters) - Tesla will spend more than

$500 million this year to expand its fast-charging network, CEO

Elon Musk said on Friday, days after abruptly laying off

employees who were running the business.

"Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M

expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW

chargers this year," Musk said in a post on his social media

platform X.

"That's just on new sites and expansions, not counting

operations costs, which are much higher," he said.

After the layoffs last week, Musk said 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.