More Tesla Executives Exit Ahead Of Robotaxi Debut

Last week, four top Tesla executives who directly reported to CEO Elon Musk announced their departures on LinkedIn.

By: Suvrat Kothari

Oct 9, 2024 at 3:55pm ET

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Multiple high-ranking Tesla officials have left the company ahead of the Robotaxi reveal this week.
Many of them claim to have contributed to the Robotaxi project in some capacity.
Eight top officials at Tesla have left the company over the past year.

Several high-ranking officials have left Tesla ahead of the much anticipated Robotaxi Day event on Thursday, according to multiple farewell posts on LinkedIn.

The exodus started with the departure of Nagesh Saldi last week, a long-time Tesla executive and the company's Chief Information Officer for the last six years, as Bloomberg reported. Saldi was invloved in building out Tesla's new data centers in Texas and New York. The data centers house "supercomputer clusters" which are supposedly critical in training the automaker's AI and self-driving systems.

On Oct. 1, Tesla's Director of Public Policy and Business Development Jos Dings announced in a LinkedIn post that he was resigning after spending nearly eight years at the company.

In the post, Dings said he contributed on things like automated driving regulations, clean vehicle and fuel credits and making European Superchargers more accessible. Business Insider was the first to report these departures.

Five days after that, Tesla's Global Vehicle Automation and Safety Policy Lead Marc Van Impe also said on LinkedIn that he was leaving after serving Tesla for over eight years.

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Impe said he worked with regulators to move the needle on safety and autonomous vehicle legislation and regulations and also contributed to the Robotaxi project. He has since started a policy advisor role at SpaceX, Elon Musk's second largest company after Tesla.

The post capturing the challenging work culture at Tesla was written by David Zhang, the former Program Manager of the Model S, Model X, Roadster and Next Generation Vehicles.

Some of the moments he highlighted included "rebuilding the cooling tube line in Reno overnight after a less than satisfactory 1 a.m. line walk with the boss" and "endless days and nights in the tent at Fremont, hand-building SX Refresh RC cars." He told his followers last week that he was moving on.

This follows the departures of other top-level Tesla officials earlier this year when Musk laid off the entire 500-member Supercharger team. Some of them were re-hired and others went on to work for other firms.

This included Rebecca Tinuchi, Tesla's former senior director of charging, Drew Baglino, chief of battery development and Rohan Patel, global director of public policy and business development.

That means eight of Musk's top deputies who once reported directly to him have left the company over the past year. Now Tesla has only three executives in top leadership as per its corporate governance website: CEO Elon Musk, CFO Vaibhav Taneja and Tom Zhu, senior vice president of automotive.

All eyes are on Tesla this week as it prepares to reveal the highly-anticipated Robotaxi, a self-driving car Musk claims will revolutionize transportation with a low-cost taxi service akin to a mix of Uber and Airbnb.

Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com