Elon Musk has elevated Omead Afshar, who labored in his workplace in what many noticed as a “chief of employees” place, to a prime govt position at Tesla after the younger engineer was reportedly in scorching water on the automaker.
This seems to be a part of a broader management shake-up at Tesla.
Afshar has had an attention-grabbing profession trajectory.
In line with his LinkedIn profile, he studied biomedical engineering at UC Irvine and located himself working at medical tools producer St. Jude Medical from 2011 to 2017.
Then, he did a brief 7-month stint as “Supervisor, Excessive Voltage Operations and Operations Enterprise Methods” at healthcare large Abbott in Los Angeles earlier than discovering himself working within the “workplace of the CEO” underneath Elon Musk.
After Musk’s longtime chief of employees (formally the director of the workplace of the CEO), Sam Teller, left in 2019, Afshar was seen as taking on that position by many individuals working underneath Musk at his many firms, however particularly Tesla, the place Afshar began to steer some initiatives.
For instance, Musk credited Afshar for main the development of Gigafactory Texas.
In 2022, Afshar reportedly acquired in scorching water at Tesla.
A report claimed that Afshar was about to be fired from Tesla over a curious controversy the place he allegedly positioned an order for a “particular glass” for a “secret challenge,” which the automaker’s finance division flagged as suspicious – triggering an inner investigation.
The premise of the investigation was that an worker was utilizing firm sources to safe supplies for a challenge that probably wasn’t associated to Tesla.
In line with the report, Tesla had already fired staff associated to the investigation, and Afshar was going to be subsequent.
The challenge has been linked to the story that Musk was planning to construct himself a glass home close to Austin, which was confirmed in his biography by Walter Isaacson, however the challenge by no means got here to be.
Tesla by no means disclosed what occurred with its inner investigation, nevertheless it was later reported that Musk moved Afshar to SpaceX for some time.
Now, he’s again at Tesla.
The Wall Road Journal studies that Musk has made Afshar Vice President of operations in North America and Europe, the place he will likely be in control of gross sales and manufacturing.
This might make him one of many prime execs at Tesla. Tom Zhu, Tesla’s longtime head of operations in China, was given these duties since final 12 months, and had unofficially grow to be Musk’s “quantity 2” at Tesla, however we reported earlier this 12 months, that Zhu went again to steer operations in China.
Zhu continues to be one in all solely three executives listed by Tesla as the highest leaders on its web site, alongside Musk and CFO Vaibhav Taneja. We wouldn’t be stunned to see Afshar present up there quickly.
Afshar’s direct studies reportedly embody Troy Jones, a 14-year veteran at Tesla and longtime chief of the North American gross sales and repair operations, and Jason Shawhan, the director of producing for Tesla at Giga Texas.
Bigger Management shake-up at Tesla
Tesla has misplaced quite a lot of prime management over the past 12 months. Many have been half of a big wave of layoffs earlier this 12 months and others left on their very own since.
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Electrek tracks hires and departures carefully at Tesla, and we haven’t seen quite a lot of the formers at prime ranges these days, however that’s not solely uncommon, as Tesla likes to advertise inside.
Musk does like loyalty, and we now study that he has promoted a few of his prime lieutenants at Tesla past Afshar.
Ashok Elluswamy, the longtime head of software program for Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) packages, has been promoted to vice chairman of Autopilot and AI software program. Elluswamy has been at Tesla for a decade and he has been one of many prime figures in Tesla’s ADAS packages for the previous 5 years.
Milan Kovac, who has additionally held prime roles in Tesla’s autonomous driving packages, has been promoted to Vice President of Optimus, a program that he has been main for the previous two years.
Electrek’s Take
For higher or worse, Elon has made clear that self-driving and humanoid robots are the highest priorities at Tesla now. Due to this fact, it is sensible that a number of the individuals main these packages at the moment are turning into the highest executives on the firm.
As for Afshar, that’s fairly an increase. His new position positively makes him one of many prime execs at Tesla, which is attention-grabbing contemplating he was reportedly in scorching water at Tesla simply 2 years in the past. One would possibly even be forgiven for pondering that Musk could possibly be grooming him to ultimately substitute him as CEO of Tesla, a task that he beforehand he didn’t need to maintain endlessly.
Actually, my predominant concern with Tesla’s management is just like my concern with Tesla’s board; they’re both too near Elon or too caught up in his cult of persona.
However now that folks like Ashok are taking up larger management roles at Tesla, it will be attention-grabbing to see in the event that they get an even bigger public voice. I’d wish to see Ashok, who’s engaged on FSD day by day, give us timelines and information on what is occurring as an alternative of Elon.
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