Tesla CEO Elon Musk stands on a podium as he attends a forum on startups in Hong Kong, China.
Bobby Yip | Reuters
Elon Musk has run two ambitious tech companies at the same time since he became chairman and then CEO of the electric car maker. Tesla while also leading SpaceX, its business of reusable rockets and satellites.
He went on to start a brain-computer interface startup, Neuralink, and a drilling business called Boring Co. in 2017, and is in a controversial lawsuit with Twitter over a purchase was faulty.
When his attention was divided, Musk relied on a large group of delegates — today more than 20 people — to keep business at Tesla. His direct reports change frequently with strategic or organizational changes, sometimes with the CEO’s “on the spot” merciless and resignation.
Here are the live reports we know of as of September 2022. Data is collected from interviews with current and recent Tesla employees, LinkedIn profiles, internal and public profiles from Tesla, and may not include everyone who reports to him.
Employee numbers are approximate and relate to the number of people each of Musk’s direct reports was managing as of early September.
About 22% of the CEO’s direct reports are now based in Texas, about half are still in California, and more than 90% are male.
Musk will need to rely on these representatives as Tesla works to bring its new plants in Gruenheide, Germany, and Austin, Texas to full production, while demonstrating progress on many other goals. mine.
Musk has told shareholders and fans that Tesla will “resolve the problem of Full Self-Driving” this year, improve vehicle service and repair, and begin delivering test Cybertruck pickup trucks this year. mid-2023. He also said that Tesla will ramp up its battery manufacturing capabilities so that it can produce 100 gigawatt-hours worth of 4680 batteries this year, enough to power more than 1 million cars. the firm.
Musk’s recent direct reports are also needed to navigate through headcount cuts amid economic uncertainty.
The CEO abruptly announced massive cuts to Tesla’s workforce at the end of May in a challenging second quarter marked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of Covid-19 in China. .
In June, Tesla closed a the entire Autopilot office in San Mateo, California, and fired at least some employees who were previously authorized to work remotely but disagreed with Musk’s orders to work at Tesla office at least 40 hours per week. The CEO cites a “feeling super bad” about the economy in an email to Tesla employees in June.
However, former Tesla senior director of artificial intelligence, Andrej Karpathy, is not among those Musk has laid off or fired – he officially announced his resignation in July. Auto Ashok Elluswamy is reporting directly to Musk at the moment.
Other direct reports of Musk leaving Tesla in 2022 include former Nevada Gigafactory Vice President Chris Lister, as CNBC previous reportand Jean Frazier, who was Tesla’s senior director of employee relations, according to internal documents seen by CNBC.
David Searle, who previously headed Tesla’s legal department, still works there, records show. Insiders said they expect Searle to leave in the next few months as he previously managed more than a dozen employees and currently has only one direct report listed on the organization’s internal charts. .
According to public and internal filings, Senior Director of Legal Dinna Eskin currently serves as Tesla’s chief legal officer and is actually the company’s general counsel. Tesla has not officially hired a person with the title of general counsel since late 2019.
