There’s some government shuffling occurring at Tesla. Two key leaders have left just lately – one among them being fired by CEO Elon Musk – however the firm additionally employed an exec from Cruise, GM’s failed robotaxi firm.
Yesterday, experiences from Forbes and CNBC mentioned that Musk had fired Omead Afshar, who previously led operations in North America and Europe and was an in depth confidant of Musk’s. (Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal additionally reported that Afshar left the corporate, although didn’t say he was fired.) The firing follows a serious stoop in gross sales for Tesla’s automotive enterprise – last quarter, income for that group fell 20 % year-over-year.
Afshar first joined Tesla in 2017, the place he began as a venture supervisor within the workplace of the CEO, in line with his LinkedIn. In 2022, he was reportedly investigated internally for a glass buy for a secret venture.
Tesla additionally recently lost Milan Kovac, its VP who headed up the Optimus humanoid robotics staff. Kovac mentioned that he left as a result of he wanted to spend extra time with household overseas. Musk thanked Kovac in a reply.
So as to add to its government ranks, although, Tesla employed Henry Kuang, who previously was Head of Autonomy at Cruise, Electrek reports. He lists his title as “Director, AI / Deep Studying for Autonomous Driving” on his LinkedIn, which says he began within the job in Might. Tesla is ramping up its robotaxi efforts, although the preliminary launch this month has been rocky.