More senior managers leave Tesla

Sendil Palani, who first joined Tesla between January 2009 and September 2011 before returning to the company in May 2014, was one of the electric vehicle manufacturer’s most senior managers. As Vice President of Finance, he reported directly to CFO Vaibhav Taneja.

Little is known about the reasons for Palani’s departure. However, he shared an emotional post on LinkedIn, reflecting on his early days at Tesla: “Tesla barely survived Christmas 2008. I started a few days later in our Finance team, under an ongoing ‘Tesla Deathwatch’. I slept under my desk in San Carlos, CA at least once, and I wasn’t the only one. There are many companies with hard-working and talented employees, but few have the level of commitment and collaboration of the Tesla team.”

Additionally, Thomas Dmytryk, a software specialist who had been with Tesla for eleven years, has announced his departure. He most recently served as Director of the team responsible for building Tesla’s over-the-air (OTA) update infrastructure and the software backbone of the new robotaxi ride-hailing service. Today, his team’s infrastructure supports a global fleet of nearly ten million Tesla vehicles, wirelessly distributing software updates, bug fixes, and new features without requiring the vehicles to visit a workshop. This solution has long served as a benchmark for other automakers, who have gradually adopted similar systems.

Victor Nechita, who worked at Tesla as Programme Manager for the Cybercab vehicle, has also announced his departure. This move comes just days after Tesla announced that it had built the first production Cybercab. In a LinkedIn post, he cited his desire to ‘a new chapter back on the east coast’ as the reason. He described his career at Tesla as quite a journey, writing: “What a journey it’s been, from interning on the Model 3 production line back in 2017 to becoming the Vehicle Program Manager of Tesla’s first purpose-built AV, the Cybercab.”

These three departures are part of a recent wave of high-profile exits at Tesla. Among others, Benjamin Bate, Tesla’s Director of Vehicle Operations and Engineering in Fremont, the head of the Cybertruck programme Siddhant Awasthi, and the Model Y Programme Manager Emmanuel Lamacchia have recently left the company.

electrek.co (Palani), electrek.co (Dmytryk), electrek.co (Nechita)