Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Vitality, and Rohan Patel, VP of Public Coverage and Enterprise Improvement have left the corporate, Patel informed TechCrunch. Patel stated he determined to go away due to “[b]ig overall changes” on the firm that he declined to specify. Their departures had been first reported by Bloomberg.
“Good for me and hopefully also good for Tesla,” Patel stated in a message to TechCrunch. “Had an amazing run and accomplished way more than I could’ve ever imagined, as a result of working with the best policy/bizdev team in the business.” Baglino said in a put up on X that it was a “difficult decision” to go away after 18 years at Tesla.
Their departures come as Tesla is shedding hundreds of staff in a bid to chop prices and increase productiveness, in keeping with an inner electronic mail despatched to employees by CEO Elon Musk, which Electrek and Bloomberg News first reported. The electrical automaker is reducing “more than 10%” of its world headcount, Musk stated within the electronic mail. Tesla completed 2023 with over 140,000 employees, which means the cuts might affect greater than 14,000 individuals.
Musk introduced the layoffs simply two weeks after Tesla reported its first year-over-year drop in sales in three years, amid a wider cooling of demand for EVs. The corporate has warned buyers that gross sales development could possibly be “notably lower” in 2024 than its said aim of fifty% development every year. It’s additionally considerably in between product cycles for the primary time in years, with the costly Cybertruck solely only in the near past going into manufacturing and the favored Mannequin Y coming into its fourth yr with none important updates.
“As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity,” Musk stated within the electronic mail. Tesla’s development, he stated, has led to “duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas.”
“As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle,” Musk wrote.
Baglino’s departure is the second time a prime govt has left the corporate prior to now yr, as Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn stepped down in August 2023. Baglino oversaw engineering for the corporate’s powertrain and battery applied sciences. He additionally had turn into one of many extra responsive executives on Musk’s social media platform, X. Patel, who spent years as a particular assistant to President Barack Obama and an advisor on local weather and vitality, was equally partaking with Tesla clients and followers in latest months.
Tesla shipped a record 1.8 million EVs in 2023. However the firm spent a lot of the yr slashing costs on its hottest fashions in an effort to counterbalance the affect of excessive rates of interest and elevated world competitors. The corporate has additionally reportedly dropped — or on the very least, delayed — plans to construct a lower-cost EV that might retail beginning at round $25,000, opting as a substitute to make use of the underlying platform being developed to energy an alleged robotaxi that Musk stated will debut on August 8.
This story and headline have been up to date to incorporate information of the departures of Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel.
