Tesla execs Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel depart as firm lays off 10%

Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Vitality, and Rohan Patel, VP of Public Coverage and Enterprise Improvement have left the corporate, Patel informed Information World. Patel mentioned he determined to depart due to “[b]ig general adjustments” on the firm that he declined to specify. Their departures have been first reported by Bloomberg.

“Good for me and hopefully additionally good for Tesla,” Patel mentioned in a message to Information World. “Had a tremendous run and achieved far more than I might’ve ever imagined, on account of working with the most effective coverage/bizdev staff within the enterprise.” Baglino said in a put up on X that it was a “tough choice” to depart after 18 years at Tesla.

Their departures come as Tesla is shedding hundreds of staff in a bid to chop prices and increase productiveness, in keeping with an inner e mail despatched to employees by CEO Elon Musk, which Electrek and Bloomberg News first reported. The electrical automaker is slicing “greater than 10%” of its world headcount, Musk mentioned within the e mail. Tesla completed 2023 with over 140,000 employees, which means the cuts might impression greater than 14,000 individuals.

Musk introduced the layoffs simply two weeks after Tesla reported its first year-over-year drop in gross sales in three years, amid a wider cooling of demand for EVs. The corporate has warned traders that gross sales development may very well be “notably decrease” in 2024 than its said aim of fifty% development every year. It’s additionally considerably in between product cycles for the primary time in years, with the costly Cybertruck solely only recently going into manufacturing and the favored Mannequin Y coming into its fourth 12 months with none vital updates.

“As we put together the corporate for our subsequent section of development, this can be very necessary to take a look at each side of the corporate for price reductions and rising productiveness,” Musk mentioned within the e mail. Tesla’s development, he mentioned, has led to “duplication of roles and job capabilities in sure areas.”

“As a part of this effort, we now have performed a radical evaluate of the group and made the tough choice to cut back our headcount by greater than 10% globally. There’s nothing I hate extra, but it surely should be performed. It will allow us to be lean, revolutionary and hungry for the following development section cycle,” Musk wrote.

Baglino’s departure is the second time a high government has left the corporate prior to now 12 months, as Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn stepped down in August 2023. Baglino oversaw engineering for the corporate’s powertrain and battery applied sciences. He additionally had grow to be one of many extra responsive executives on Musk’s social media platform, X. Patel, who spent years as a particular assistant to President Barack Obama and an advisor on local weather and vitality, was equally partaking with Tesla prospects and followers in current months.

Tesla shipped a document 1.8 million EVs in 2023. However the firm spent a lot of the 12 months slashing costs on its hottest fashions in an effort to counterbalance the impression of excessive rates of interest and elevated world competitors. The corporate has additionally reportedly dropped — or on the very least, delayed — plans to construct a lower-cost EV that will retail beginning at round $25,000, opting as an alternative to make use of the underlying platform being developed to energy an alleged robotaxi that Musk mentioned will debut on August 8.

This story and headline have been up to date to incorporate information of the departures of Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel.