A major Tesla executive left after 18 years at the company amid mass layoffs
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Drew Baglino, Tesla's SVP of powertrain and electrical engineering, resigned on Sunday.
Baglino's departure came shortly before Tesla laid off 10% of its workforce.
The executive had worked at Tesla for over 18 years.
Drew Baglino, Tesla's senior vice president of powertrain and electrical engineering, announced on Monday that he'd left the company, becoming the latest major executive to depart Elon Musk's EV giant after the chief financial officer stepped down in August. The move came as Tesla announced sweeping job cuts.
I made the difficult decision to move on from Tesla after 18 years yesterday. I am so thankful to have worked with and learned from the countless incredibly talented people at Tesla over the years.
I loved tackling nearly 🤣 every problem we solved as a team and feel gratified…— Drew Baglino (@baglino) April 15, 2024
Rohan Patel, Tesla's vice president of public policy and business development, also said on Monday he'd left the company. Patel told TechCrunch that he departed due to big "overall changes" at Tesla.
Baglino and Patel did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider for comment, nor did a spokesperson from Tesla. However, Musk responded to X posts from both execs thanking them for their work.
Baglino joined the company in 2006 — two years after Musk first invested in the automaker — and started out as an electrical engineer working on the Roadster, the company's first vehicle.
By the time he left, he had become one of only four execs named as "leadership" on Tesla's investor relations page, alongside Musk, Vaibhav Taneja, the chief financial officer, and Tom Zhu, the senior vice president of automotive. Baglino was in charge of the technology behind the company's energy products, including car batteries and motors.
Electrek, an EV blog, reported on Monday morning that Baglino had already lost his Tesla company X badge — a red icon next to his X username — shortly before he announced his departure on the platform. X is also owned by Musk.
Baglino appears to have resigned less than 24 hours before Tesla announced a round of job cuts that will affect about 10% of its workforce. Multiple Tesla employees told Business Insider there had been concerns about impending layoffs going into the weekend as rumors spread throughout the company that some managers had been told to provide upper management with a list of names.
Earlier this month, Tesla reported substandard quarterly sales numbers amid a general slowdown in EV demand. The company's stock is down about 33% year over year.
Tesla saw another key executive depart last year. Zachary Kirkhorn, the company's chief financial officer who was rumored to one day possibly succeed Musk, left the company in August after 13 years.
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