Model 3 and Model Y Executives Announce Resignations on Social Media
Close Associate of Elon Musk Also Left Tesla in June
"Sales Plummet After End of Electric Vehicle Tax Credits"
It has been reported that executives responsible for Tesla's core electric vehicle business are resigning one after another. On November 10 (local time), Yonhap News, citing Bloomberg, reported, "Siddhant Awasthi, who oversaw the development and mass production of the electric pickup truck Cybertruck at Tesla for three years, announced via a LinkedIn post the previous day that he is leaving the company."
Tesla Model Y parked next to the Tesla Cybertruck outside a Tesla store in San Diego, California, USA. Photo by Reuters Yonhap News
Awasthi joined Tesla as an intern in 2017 and moved to a position in charge of the Model 3 this July. He stated, "Given the exciting growth opportunities ahead, the decision to leave was not easy." Emmanuel Lamacchia, the manager responsible for the Model Y, also announced on LinkedIn that he is leaving Tesla after eight years with the company.
While they did not specify the reasons for their resignations or their future plans, the departure of key executives who have led Tesla is being seen as a troubling sign. The media even referred to it as an "exodus."
Previously, David Lau, former Vice President of Software Engineering at Tesla, moved to OpenAI, and Milan Kovac, Vice President and head of Optimus Engineering in the robotics division, also resigned. In June, Omid Afshar, a longtime close associate of CEO Elon Musk, left the company as well.
Bloomberg pointed out, "Sales of Tesla's main products, the Model Y and Model 3, have sharply declined in North America following the end of electric vehicle tax credits," adding, "The poor sales performance of the Cybertruck, which has yet to establish a presence in the pickup truck market, may also be related to the wave of executive departures."
Meanwhile, at Tesla's annual shareholders' meeting on November 6, a conditional compensation package worth $1 trillion was approved for Musk. The Tesla board designed the compensation plan to grant a total of 423 million stock options if Musk fulfills all 12 tranches of targets, including reaching certain market capitalization milestones.
To receive this package, Tesla must deliver 20 million electric vehicles, achieve 10 million subscriptions for FSD (Full Self-Driving) software, record $400 billion in EBITDA, and raise the company's market capitalization to $8.5 trillion.
Musk is expected to receive his first compensation once he achieves the board's initial target of a $2 trillion market capitalization. The BBC in the UK described it as "an unprecedented and controversial deal," but also noted, "The board argued that if the deal was not approved, Musk might leave the company, and they insisted that losing him was not an option."
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