Elon Musk has elevated Omead Afshar, who labored in his workplace in what many noticed as a “chief of employees” place, to a high govt function at Tesla after the younger engineer was reportedly in scorching water on the automaker.
This seems to be a part of a broader management shake-up at Tesla.
Afshar has had an attention-grabbing profession trajectory.
In keeping with his LinkedIn profile, he studied biomedical engineering at UC Irvine and located himself working at medical gear producer St. Jude Medical from 2011 to 2017.
Then, he did a brief 7-month stint as “Supervisor, Excessive Voltage Operations and Operations Enterprise Methods” at healthcare big Abbott in Los Angeles earlier than discovering himself working within the “workplace of the CEO” below Elon Musk.
After Musk’s longtime chief of employees (formally the director of the workplace of the CEO), Sam Teller, left in 2019, Afshar was seen as taking up that function by many individuals working below Musk at his many corporations, however particularly Tesla, the place Afshar began to guide some tasks.
For instance, Musk credited Afshar for main the development of Gigafactory Texas.
In 2022, Afshar reportedly bought in scorching water at Tesla.
A report claimed that Afshar was about to be fired from Tesla over a curious controversy the place he allegedly positioned an order for a “particular glass” for a “secret undertaking,” which the automaker’s finance division flagged as suspicious – triggering an inner investigation.
The premise of the investigation was that an worker was utilizing firm assets to safe supplies for a undertaking that doubtlessly wasn’t associated to Tesla.
In keeping with the report, Tesla had already fired workers associated to the investigation, and Afshar was going to be subsequent.
The undertaking has been linked to the story that Musk was planning to construct himself a glass home close to Austin, which was confirmed in his biography by Walter Isaacson, however the undertaking by no means got here to be.
Tesla by no means disclosed what occurred with its inner investigation, however it was later reported that Musk moved Afshar to SpaceX for some time.
Now, he’s again at Tesla.
The Wall Road Journal reviews that Musk has made Afshar Vice President of operations in North America and Europe, the place he will likely be in command of gross sales and manufacturing.
This might make him one of many high execs at Tesla. Tom Zhu, Tesla’s longtime head of operations in China, was given these tasks since final 12 months, and had unofficially turn into Musk’s “quantity 2” at Tesla, however we reported earlier this 12 months, that Zhu went again to guide operations in China.
Zhu continues to be one among solely three executives listed by Tesla as the highest leaders on its web site, alongside Musk and CFO Vaibhav Taneja. We wouldn’t be stunned to see Afshar present up there quickly.
Afshar’s direct reviews reportedly embrace Troy Jones, a 14-year veteran at Tesla and longtime chief of the North American gross sales and repair operations, and Jason Shawhan, the director of producing for Tesla at Giga Texas.
Bigger Management shake-up at Tesla
Tesla has misplaced loads of high management over the past 12 months. Many had been half of a big wave of layoffs earlier this 12 months and others left on their very own since.
https://twitter.com/FredericLambert/standing/1785753228103012454
Electrek tracks hires and departures carefully at Tesla, and we haven’t seen loads of the formers at high ranges these days, however that’s not solely uncommon, as Tesla likes to advertise inside.
Musk does like loyalty, and we now study that he has promoted a few of his high lieutenants at Tesla past Afshar.
Ashok Elluswamy, the longtime head of software program for Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) applications, has been promoted to vp of Autopilot and AI software program. Elluswamy has been at Tesla for a decade and he has been one of many high figures in Tesla’s ADAS applications for the previous 5 years.
Milan Kovac, who has additionally held high roles in Tesla’s autonomous driving applications, has been promoted to Vice President of Optimus, a program that he has been main for the previous two years.
Electrek’s Take
For higher or worse, Elon has made clear that self-driving and humanoid robots are the highest priorities at Tesla now. Subsequently, it is sensible that a few of the folks main these applications are actually turning into the highest executives on the firm.
As for Afshar, that’s fairly an increase. His new function positively makes him one of many high execs at Tesla, which is attention-grabbing contemplating he was reportedly in scorching water at Tesla simply 2 years in the past. One may even be forgiven for pondering that Musk may very well be grooming him to finally substitute him as CEO of Tesla, a task that he beforehand he didn’t need to maintain ceaselessly.
Truthfully, my principal concern with Tesla’s management is much like my concern with Tesla’s board; they’re both too near Elon or too caught up in his cult of character.
However now that individuals like Ashok are taking up larger management roles at Tesla, it might be attention-grabbing to see in the event that they get a much bigger public voice. I’d prefer to see Ashok, who’s engaged on FSD each day, give us timelines and knowledge on what is going on as a substitute of Elon.
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