- Tesla announced in a regulatory filing that its chief financial officer was leaving the carmaker.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that Zachary Kirkhorn could have been the successor to Elon Musk.
Zachary Kirkhorn, Tesla's chief financial officer, is leaving the electric-car company after working for the electric-car maker for about 13 years.
The EV company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that was made public on Monday that Kirkhorn would be replaced by Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla's chief accounting officer. Tesla said Kirkhorn, who had served as the chief financial officer for about three years, would assist in the transition through the end of the year.
Kirhorn confirmed his departure on LinkedIn.
"Being a part of this company is a special experience and I'm extremely proud of the work we've done together since I joined over 13 years ago," he wrote. "As I shift my responsibilities to support this transition, I want to thank the talented, passionate, and hard-working employees at Tesla, who have accomplished things many thought not possible. I also want to thank Elon for his leadership and optimism, which has inspired so many people."
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Kirkhorn could be the next CEO of Tesla. The publication said that board members at the company had considered him a successor to Elon Musk and that Kirkhorn's name had been mentioned before a trial last year about Musk's $44 billion Tesla pay package.
During the trial, James Murdoch, a Tesla board member, said Musk had identified a potential successor within the months leading up to the trial but did not specify who Musk had suggested.
In May, the Journal compared Musk's relationship with Kirkhorn to the connection between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Steve Jobs, a cofounder of Apple, because Jobs and Musk were willing to take "risky bets" to build their companies, while Cook and Kirkhorn appear to have taken a more cautious approach that helped keep the companies in balance.
Tesla staff told the Journal that Kirkhorn won Musk's approval by leading with "bad news" and staying in the billionaire's shadow. The publication said Kirkhorn also often stepped in as a mediator between Musk and other staff at Tesla.
Kirkhorn's LinkedIn profile says he joined the car company in 2010 as a senior analyst. Tesla's value has surged since he took over the position of chief financial officer from Deepak Ahuja in 2019. Kirkhorn worked as an analyst at McKinsey & Company before joining Tesla and previously interned at Microsoft, his profile says.
The company is expected to have a busy quarter in the coming months. Musk recently announced plans to begin deliveries of its highly anticipated Cybertruck by the end of the year.
It's unclear whether Kirkhorn might transition to a role at another one of Musk's companies as the billionaire has been known to bring in staff from Tesla or SpaceX to help at his other companies, including X, formerly Twitter. Last year, Musk moved Omead Afshar, one of his righthand men at Tesla, to SpaceX.
Kirkhorn, Musk, and a spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
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