Tesla has reportedly fired its head of operations for North America and Europe, a controversial worker who rose to the management place after serving as Elon Musk’s chief of employees.
As we beforehand reported, Omead Afshar had an attention-grabbing profession trajectory, to say the least.
In keeping with his LinkedIn profile, he studied biomedical engineering at UC Irvine and located himself working at medical tools producer St. Jude Medical from 2011 to 2017.
Then, he did a brief 7-month stint as “Supervisor, Excessive Voltage Operations and Operations Enterprise Programs” at healthcare big Abbott in Los Angeles earlier than discovering himself working within the “workplace of the CEO” beneath 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 beneath Musk at his many corporations, however particularly Tesla, the place Afshar began to steer some tasks.
For instance, Musk credited Afshar for main the development of Gigafactory Texas.
In 2022, Afshar reportedly obtained 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 challenge,” 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 challenge that doubtlessly had no relation to Tesla.
In keeping with the report, Tesla had already fired staff associated to the investigation, and Afshar was subsequent in line.
The challenge has been linked to the story that Musk was planning to construct a glasshouse close to Austin, which was confirmed in his biography by Walter Isaacson; nonetheless, the challenge by no means got here to fruition.
Tesla by no means disclosed the outcome of its inner investigation, nevertheless it was later reported that Musk briefly reassigned Afshar to SpaceX. Many interpreted the scenario as Afshar taking the blame for Musk for the reason that challenge aimed to learn him personally.
Two years later, it was reported that Ashar was again at Tesla and elevated to the function of Vice President of operations in North America and Europe, the place he will likely be in control of gross sales and manufacturing.
The function successfully made him one of many high executives at Tesla.
Now, Forbes stories that Afshar was let go from Tesla:
Elon Musk fired Tesla’s head of operations in North America and Europe, amid declining gross sales in each areas and the electrical car model’s falling reputation, in keeping with folks accustomed to the matter.
The departure comes amid Tesla going through important demand points, particularly in Europe, the place gross sales are in free fall regardless of document incentives and hovering EV gross sales.
Tesla’s deliveries are actually anticipated to say no quarter-over-quarter in each Europe and China, in comparison with an already difficult first quarter.
The automaker blamed its poor efficiency in Q1 on the Mannequin Y changeover, nevertheless it doesn’t have that excuse this quarter, and gross sales are anticipated to be down about 90,000 items in comparison with final 12 months.
Electrek’s Take
At this level, I believe it’s clear that the principle causes for Tesla’s declining gross sales are Elon Musk and the truth that the automaker has launched a single new car within the final 5 years, and it’s the Cybertruck.
You may as well blame the latter on Musk.
But, somebody, and somebody was believed to be near Musk, has gotten let go over this concern when it’s clear who must be let go.
However that stated, I’m stunned Omead obtained the axe. He was seen as one of many predominant Elon loyalists.
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