The head of Tesla’s (TSLA) North American sales and a 13-year veteran of the company announced his decision to step down less than a year after a major promotion.
In a LinkedIn post, Raj Jegannathan said he leaves the company “with a full heart and excitement for what lies ahead” and thanked the EV carmaker for “this wonderful opportunity.”
Jegannathan did not state whether he was leaving for a position with another company. His departure comes seven months after his predecessor, Troy Jones, the top North American sales executive, resigned. Over the past 12 months, five members of Tesla’s (TSLA) senior management have left, including Omead Afshar, a top aide to CEO Elon Musk.
These departures coincide with the company’s pivot from a hardware-centric entity to an AI-centered company, building humanoid robots and autonomous vehicles, all of which will be fueled by heavy investments to achieve Musk’s vision of “Amazing Abundance.”
As part of this strategy, Tesla (TSLA) plans to sunset the Model S and Model X and repurpose its Fremont factory for Optimus production. Alongside the departures of senior sales and manufacturing leaders, including Jones, Afshar, and most recently Jegannathan, these moves underscore Tesla’s broader pivot and deliberate “talent reallocation” toward executives with deep expertise in robotics and artificial intelligence.
The exit of another high-level executive failed to put a dent in Tesla’s (TSLA) upward trajectory, with the stock higher for the third straight day.