Since taking control of Tesla in 2008, Musk has relied on several executives to help make it the biggest EV manufacturer in the world. One top Musk lieutenant is Omead Afshar, a former ski instructor who has worked for Tesla for more than six years and lists his most recent position as Office of the CEO. Afshar oversaw construction of Gigafactory Texas and moved to SpaceX in late 2022 where he’s working on the Starship deep space rocket. Then there’s Andrew Baglino, a senior vice president for powertrain and energy engineering at Tesla, who is considered a top candidate to succeed Musk. (Baglino, who has spent nearly 18 years at Tesla, is also the company’s most senior engineer behind Musk.) Charles Kuehmann, the former director of product design at Apple, works for both Tesla and SpaceX where he is currently VP materials engineering. He is credited with helping develop the steel alloy used for Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck. Some of Musk’s closest advisors have left him but haven’t gone far. Consider JB Straubel, who was CTO of Tesla for nearly 16 years and is considered a cofounder. Straubel went on to launch Redwood Materials, which focuses on recycling lithium-ion batteries, but he also sits on Tesla’s board. Here’s a look at the top executives running Tesla now.
Read an updated version of this story here.
Elon Musk
Tesla CEO, Technoking, and board member
Executives
Tom Zhu
Senior vice president
Zhu was named senior vice president, automotive, in April 2023. He was previously vice president, Greater China. Frequently referred to as chief of Tesla China and the second most powerful person at Tesla.
Andrew Baglino
Senior vice president
Powertrain and engineering
Vaibhav Taneja
CFO
Taneja was chief accounting officer when he was named CFO in August to replace Zachary Kirkhorn.
Nagesh Saldi
CIO
Omead Afshar
Office of the CEO at Tesla
Top Musk lieutenant; was said to be working at SpaceX as VP of Starship production in late 2022.
Brandon Ehrhart
General counsel and corporate secretary
Karn Budhiraj
Vice president, supply chain
Lars Moravy
Head of vehicle engineering
Considered a valued top executive.
Laurie Shelby
Vice president, environmental health, safety, and security
Charles Kuehmann
VP, materials engineering at SpaceX/Tesla Motors
Franz von Holzhausen
Senior design executive
James Musk
Part of Tesla autopilot; also Musk’s cousin.
Tesla Board of Directors
Elon Musk
Robyn M. Denholm
Chairman of the board
Former CFO and head of strategy at Telstra
Ira Ehrenpreis
Founder and managing partner of DBL Partners
Joe Gebbia
Cofounder of Airbnb
James Murdoch
CEO of Lupa Systems
Kimbal Musk
Brother; cofounder of Zip2, which he and Elon sold to Compaq.
JB Straubel
Founder and CEO of Redwood Materials; a Tesla cofounder who served as CTO from 2004 to July 2019.
Kathleen Wilson-Thompson
Former EVP and global chief human resources officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance.
See who runs Musk’s other companies:
This article is part of Inside Elon's Universe, a special digital edition of Coins2Day.