Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., and Omead Afshar, left, leave an event at the site of the company’s manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China, on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019.
Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired Omead Afshar, the automaker’s vice president of manufacturing and operations, CNBC has confirmed, following declines in car sales in key markets this year.
Afshar, who reported directly to Musk, led a team of more than a half dozen high-level employees, according to internal organizational charts viewed by CNBC.
Forbes first reported that Afshar was dismissed by Musk. Bloomberg reported earlier that Afshar had left the company.
Executives on Afshar’s team included Troy Jones, who is Tesla’s vice president of North American sales, and Joe Ward, vice president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Also on his team was Karen Steakley, who now leads business development and policy for Tesla, and previously held the role of deputy director for legislative affairs for Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
CNBC reached out to Afshar and to other Tesla executives as well as board members. They didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Afshar was the subject of an internal investigation at Tesla in 2022, Bloomberg reported, which had focused on his orders of hard-to-get construction materials, including a special kind of glass for a secretive project for Musk.
Following that probe, Afshar also worked for SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor, but had returned to Tesla and was promoted to the vice president role.
Afshar’s profile on X still says he’s at Tesla and this week he praised Musk following the launch of the company’s pilot Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, writing, “Thank you, Elon, for pushing us all!”
Afshar’s termination follows the resignation of Milan Kovac, previously head of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robotics program, earlier this month. Kovac said in a post on X that he was leaving in order to spend more time with his family. Musk has thanked Kovac publicly for his work.
Tesla’s stock price is down 19% this year, badly underperforming the Nasdaq and most of its megacap tech peers.
Tesla new car sales in Europe fell for a fifth straight month in May, according to data published on Wednesday from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA, as customers pivot to European brands and cheaper Chinese electric vehicles.
The company has faced brand and reputational damage in the past year, largely due to Musk’s incendiary rhetoric and political activity. Musk spent nearly $300 million to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump to a second term and then led an initiative to slash federal agencies and their resources.
Musk also formally endorsed and promoted Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party.