Some of the directors who reported to Afshar now report to Tom Zhu, Tesla’s senior vice president of automotive, according to some of the people. The Chinese-born executive oversees Tesla’s factory in Shanghai and is one of the company’s three named executive officers.
Afshar, Musk, Zhu and Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tesla Vice President Omead Afshar, left, at a Tesla manufacturing facility in Shanghai in 2019.
Afshar, who has worked in the office of the CEO, was promoted last year to oversee sales and manufacturing operations in North America and Europe. Those markets have become particular pain points for the automaker recently, with sales plunging due to rising competition and a consumer backlash to Musk’s role in US President Donald Trump’s administration.
This marks the latest departure of a prominent Tesla leader in recent weeks. Milan Kovac, the head of engineering for the company’s Optimus humanoid robot program, stepped down citing a desire to spend more time with his family.
Jenna Ferrua, who is listed on LinkedIn as a human resources director for North America, has also left Tesla and no longer appears to be in the company directory, according to people familiar.
The personnel changes punctuate a tumultuous year for Tesla, whose shares have tumbled about 19% while demand has waned for its EV models and Musk has spent time in Washington. The chief executive officer is trying to reorient the company around artificial intelligence, robots and driverless cars, recently rolling out a small number of Tesla’s long-promised robotaxis in Austin.
Tesla is expected to report global delivery results for the second quarter next week.
Its shares briefly turned negative after Bloomberg reported Afshar’s departure, and were little changed as of 1:57 p.m. in New York.
Afshar joined Tesla in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile, as the carmaker was beginning to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan.
He came under internal scrutiny in 2022 for his role in purchasing hard-to-get construction materials, including a special kind of glass, Bloomberg reported.
It’s not unusual for executives to shuffle from one part of Musk’s empire to another, and Afshar worked at SpaceX for a time.
Tesla has just three named executive officers: Musk, Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja and Zhu.
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