Zack Kirkhorn taking over as CFO at Tesla

CFO Deepak Ahuja announced his retirement from Tesla, shortly after the company reported a profit in Q4 of last year. Tesla’s current vice president of finance, Zach Kirkhorn, will be taking over the position and has been with the company since Roadster days.

Deepak Ahuja already retired from Tesla in 2015 and was replaced by Jason Wheeler, Google’s former VP of Finance. When Wheeler departed in 2017, Deepak came out of retirement to again fill the CFO position at Tesa.

Deepak is something of a superstar in all things finance and managed to bring Tesla through the difficulties of 2008. Even though he is (again) leaving his post, Deepak will still play a role in the company. Elon Musk said that Deepak would continue to serve as a “senior adviser probably (for) years to come”.

Deepak said about his successor, “I feel really good about Zach taking over. He’s proven himself over the years with many tough challenges he’s worked on.”

Zach Kirkhorn, who is going to try and fill Ahuja’s shoes, had only been the VP of finance for two months before Deepak Ahuja’s announcement. But Kirkhorn has had a stellar rise through the company’s ranks, with a promotion roughly every two years over his last ten years with Telsa in various finance roles.

Kirkhorn said that he is looking forward to scaling the company’s energy business. “I’ve been deep in the operations of every major program of the company from Roadster to…scaling our energy business and more things to come. I feel we’re starting 2019 with a very strong financial foundation. We have enough cash to start new programs and develop new technologies.”

In other Tesla news, Musk noted that the Tesla pick-up truck might be presented this coming summer. He said, “It will be quite unique — unlike anything in the market.”

teslarati.com (CFO position) teslarati.com  (electric pick-up truck)