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One of Elon Musk’s top Li quit his job at Tesla amid a plunge in sales and a pivot towards autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Omead Afshar, who was promoted to run sales and operations in North America and Europe last year, has left his role, according to two people familiar with the decision. They said Jenna Ferua, head of North American Human Resources, also left the company.
Tesla, Afshar, and Ferrua did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg first reported departure.
Afshar’s departure is a difficult time for Tesla as sales and revenues drop. It suffers from a shortage of new models, particularly intensifying competition in China, consumer backlash against mask right-wing political activity in Europe and the support of President Donald Trump.
Tesla’s global EV delivery fell 13% in the first quarter, with its net profit falling 71%. That makes Musk promise to “allocate far more of my time to Tesla,” and to reduce the amount of time he spends in Washington. His so-called government efficiency department has cut controversial government work and spending.
Musk then left his government role and clashed publicly with the president.
However, Tesla has not been able to reverse the trend so far, with UK and Europe sales falling 28% in May for a consecutive year. EV makers will report their global distribution numbers for the second quarter next week, with analysts predicting a further double-digit fall.
AFSHAR has been working for Tesla since 2017 in the CEO’s office before overseeing the construction of the vast “Giga Texas” manufacturing plant in Austin since 2020.
He is said to be “fireman” and “executor” for the world’s wealthiest man, and is moving across various companies in Musk to solve the madness issue and carry out massive layoffs, the Financial Times previously reported.
In late 2022 he was part of a “transition team” that fired over 7,500 people on Twitter and is now rebranded as X. Last year he helped take on a 10% reduction in Tesla’s workforce, cutting around 14,000 jobs.
After leaving Tesla, it was not clear whether AFShar would be reassigned to another part of the Musk empire.
Musk has done a broader overhaul of EV makers, betting its future on autonomous driving with artificial intelligence and humanoid robots called Optimus. Last week, Tesla launched a pilot program for its self-driving Robotaxis in Austin.
However, the technology is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency after multiple collisions in poor conditions such as fog and sun glare. Tesla relies solely on cameras mounted on the vehicle, but rivals like Google’s Waymo driver Restaxy use more expensive radar and rider sensors.
