Musk loses 4 executives ahead of Robotaxi event

• Several Tesla executives have announced they are leaving or have left in the past week.
• Several of the executives have worked at Tesla for nearly a decade or more.
• Tesla is set to unveil its Robotaxi on Thursday.

Tesla has shed executives ahead of its Robotaxi event, with four of Elon Musk’s subordinates saying they have left the company in the past week.

Tesla employees were told on Oct. 3 during an all-hands meeting that Chief Information Officer Nagesh Saldi was leaving the automaker after nearly 12 years with the company, three workers told Business Insider. The workers asked not to be identified to avoid professional retaliation. Bloomberg was the first to report on Saldi’s departure.

Tesla’s director of public policy and business development, Jos Dings, announced on LinkedIn that he is leaving the company on October 1. On Oct. 6, global vehicle automation and security policy lead Marc Van Impe also announced on LinkedIn that he had left Tesla.

Both Dings and Van Impe had reported to Tesla’s vice president of public policy and business development, Rohan Patel, before he left the automaker in April. They began reporting directly to Musk after Patel’s departure.

On LinkedIn, Dings said he was taking a career break, and Van Impe said he was moving into an advisory role at SpaceX.

Van Impe has spent the past four years rolling out Tesla’s driver assistance technology to global markets, according to LinkedIn.

On October 4, Tesla’s former Model S and Model X program manager David Zhang also told his LinkedIn followers that he has left the company. Zhang’s updated LinkedIn profile shows he parted ways with Tesla in July, but he did not publicly comment on his departure until Friday.

The automaker’s former head of vehicle programs, Daniel Ho, officially announced on LinkedIn on September 29 that he has left Tesla and joined Waymo as the new director of programs.

Musk previously announced Ho’s departure in April. He was one of several executives who parted ways with Tesla after Musk said the company would cut its workforce by more than 10 percent. Drew Baglino and Rebecca Tinucci, Superalimentare’s senior director, left in April.

In total, Musk has lost eight of his direct reports at Tesla in the past year. Tesla’s CEO oversees more than 30 direct reports.

A Tesla spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Some former workers attribute Tesla’s high turnover rate to Musk’s leadership style.

“Every few years, Elon comes in and downsizes or there’s a reorganization and it’s like you have to build everything from scratch,” one former manager told BI. “People are exhausted if they keep up this pace.”

Another former senior employee said a growing number of workers at the company no longer believe in Musk’s vision, especially after the billionaire turned his attention to his 2022 acquisition of Twitter.

“A lot of people at Tesla are sick of all the noise,” they said.

A former manager who opted to step down earlier this year said Tesla’s layoffs in April had many high-level employees eyeing the exits. “We kept fighting to keep our teams together,” they said, but “this shit is taking its toll.”

Internally, there was little discussion among workers about the departures, seven employees told BI.

“I think a lot of the company’s focus right now is on the Robotaxi event,” a Tesla employee said.

Tesla is set to give its first demonstration of its self-driving technology at Robotaxi Day on Thursday. Over the years, Musk has repeatedly emphasized the importance of Tesla’s self-driving technology to the company’s future.

The event is scheduled to take place at the Warner Bros studio in Burbank, California and will be broadcast live on X.

Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Reach the reporter by email and a non-business device at [email protected] or 248-894-6012