Tesla appoints new head for Europe and USA
As Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal report, Afshar has been “promoted.” Since joining Tesla seven years ago, he has worked in Musk’s office – first as Project Manager, later as Project Director. Since July 2020, his position description on LinkedIn has featured a smiley face with a cowboy hat – he was active around the construction of the Giga Texas.
It says a lot that his current role is only clear via the insiders at Bloomberg and the WSJ. He is Vice President and is in charge of production and sales. In this position, Afshar is said to report to managers such as Troy Jones, Vice President of Sales and Service in North America, or Jason Shawhan, Head of Production at Giga Texas.
Afshar is not without controversy at Tesla, as he is said to have stepped down from Tesla in 2022 and was also active at Musk’s companies SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter). The alleged background: When he was responsible for the Giga Texas, there is said to have been an order for a special glass at the company’s expense. It was suspected that company resources had been misappropriated. The WSJ reported last year that Tesla employees had been working on a secret project that included plans for a structure with glass walls, which was described internally as a house for Musk. However, Afshar declined to comment when asked by Bloomberg.
Afshar to take over some tasks from Tom Zhu
Tesla is only represented externally by three executives: In addition to Musk himself as CEO, these are Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja and Tom Zhu, Senior Vice President for Automotive. According to the Wall Street Journal, Zhu, who was long regarded as an internal beacon of hope, returned to China at the beginning of the year and filled his role from there.
According to the WSJ report, Afshar is now to take over some of the tasks that previously fell to Zhu in his new dual role in North America and Europe. Afshar will continue to report directly to Elon Musk. A specific work assignment is not known, but Tesla has not been able to maintain the growth rate of recent years in either region. Depending on the market, registrations are rising more slowly or have even declined slightly. Although company-wide deliveries have increased again, the global price war has become visible in the business figures.
In addition, Elon Musk no longer considers Tesla’s car business to be as crucial to the company’s future as it once was. He is investing more resources in robotics and artificial intelligence. According to Bloomberg, there have also been some changes in management positions in these areas: Ashok Elluswamy is now Vice President for Autopilot and AI software and Milan Kovac is Vice President for the humanoid robot Optimus.
There has always been a high turnover of personnel at Tesla, including in top management. The last major departure was long-serving CFO Zach Kirkhorn in the summer of 2023. The suspension of Rebecca Tinucci’s entire Supercharger team this spring also made headlines – Tinucci now works for Uber.
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