Managers’ heads roll – This is how experts assess the strategic shift at Tesla

According to industry experts, the top staffing is partly due to the cost-cutting measures that Musk imposed on Tesla due to the loss of profits in the more competitive electric car market. And they reflect the newly adapted strategy.

Charging infrastructure manager dismissed
Rebecca Tinucci, who led Tesla’s charging team, was one of two women on stage at Investor Day last March. According to a report from ‘The Information’ this week, the boss and around 500 employees from her team are among the latest departures. The head of the new car program, Daniel Ho, also packed up. In addition, Rohan Patel, who was responsible for political relations, left and the former Obama official’s team was disbanded. “Hopefully these actions make it clear that we must remain absolutely rigorous on workforce and cost reductions,” Musk wrote in an email. Not all managers take the austerity measures seriously.

Tesla’s charging station activities are also crucial for other electric car makers, as almost all US competitors, including German ones, have agreed to adopt Tesla’s charging standards in the past year. Mercedes or BMW drivers can also refuel at Tesla. On his social media platform

CFO and chief battery engineer fired
CFO Zach Kirkhorn and Drew Baglino, the chief battery engineer, have also disappeared since their appearance in Texas. The latter was part of the wave of layoffs announced in April by ten percent of the 140,000 employees worldwide, which also affects a total of around 800 employees at the German Tesla factory in Grünheide. Baglino softened his departure by selling his shareholding for $181 million. High-ranking powertrain engineering manager Colin Campbell also has a past with Tesla. The list continues with US HR manager Allie Arebalo and Martin Viecha, head of Investor Relations, who has had to explain his boss’s comments to investors in recent years.

Good governance experts frown on the bloodshed. “Many departures in a short period of time indicate a problematic leadership style,” says Charles Elson of the University of Delaware’s Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. “You shouldn’t lose so many people so quickly.”

Given the decline in sales, profits and stock price, Musk has reasserted his dominance in the company – for some investors, this is more important than the executive exodus. “Elon is not there and we have this turnover? This is very bad,” said Gene Munster, managing partner of Deepwater Asset Management and Tesla investor. “If Elon is there, he will leverage talent to keep things going, so it’s really just a matter of keeping Elon on board.”

Major strategy changes are expected
Fundamental strategy changes are taking place at Tesla, which of course go hand in hand with a restructuring of management. The group’s future lies in artificial intelligence and robotaxis and no longer just in car production, Musk said at the latest analyst conference. According to insiders, he put aside plans for a new, cheap model series. Instead, existing platforms are being overhauled for cost-effective models. This also marks the end of the next, technically revolutionary step of casting the car’s substructure from a single part instead of the previous three components in the gigapress – compared to small-scale production by conventional car manufacturers from more than a hundred individual parts.

Governments in India and Mexico may have recoiled at Tesla’s announcement last week that it would only start building new factories once its existing production capacity of three million cars per year was fully utilized. Analysts estimate the automaker will produce fewer than two million vehicles this year. Chief engineer Lars Moravy said using existing production lines was a major change in strategy. Indian politicians were already ready to celebrate a multi-billion dollar investment in a car factory after customs rules were changed at Musk’s insistence. But the Tesla boss rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the last minute, sparking outrage in the Indian media last week. It fits in with the image that political leader Patel leaves behind someone who played an important role in this.

Some analysts also see good things in the hustle and bustle currently going on in Tesla’s management team. “If you believe the narrative that Tesla is essentially an AI company, that’s not a cause for concern,” said KC Boyce of data analytics and consulting firm Escalent. “It fits with the idea of ​​right-sizing the company and providing resources to deliver on the promise of fully self-driving cars and robotaxis.”