Tesla recently lost two key execs

Yesterday, reports from Forbes and CNBC said that Musk had fired Omead Afshar, who formerly led operations in North America and Europe and was a close confidant of Musk’s. (Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal also reported that Afshar left the company, but did not say he was fired.) The firing follows a major slump in sales for Tesla’s automotive business – last quarter, revenue for that organization fell 20 percent year-over-year.

Afshar first joined Tesla in 2017, where he started as a project manager in the office of the CEO, according to his LinkedIn. In 2022, he was reportedly investigated internally for a glass purchase for a secret project.

Tesla also recently lost Milan Kovac, the VP who headed up the Optimus humanoid robotics team. Kovac said that he left because he needed to spend more time with his family abroad. Musk thanked Kovac in a reply.

Electrek reported Friday morning that Tesla had hired Henry Kuang, who, in a now-inaccessible LinkedIn profile, listed his title at GM’s Cruise as “Senior Director / Head of Autonomy” and his title at Tesla as “Director, AI / Deep Learning for Autonomous Driving.” However, in an update, Electrek said that “Tesla denied hiring Kuang for the role listed in his LinkedIn profile.”

Correction, June 27th: To Electrek, Tesla denied hiring Henry Kuang.