Elon Musk reportedly chose a replacement after he admitted that his time spent as the Tesla CEO has been anything but joyful.
“I, frankly, don’t want to be the CEO of any company,” Musk said in an interview in November last year. “I’d much rather spend my time doing design and engineering, which is what I’m naturally good at.” After he took over Twitter in October, Musk said in December he was willing to resign as “Chief Twit” when he finds someone “foolish enough to take the job.” Let’s look at a list of Musk’s potential successors, who might pave the basis for Tesla’s future chapter.
Let’s look at a list of Musk’s potential successors, who might pave the basis for Tesla’s future chapter.
Ashok Elluswamy
Ashok Elluswamy, 34, was born in the Tamil Nadu town of Tindivanam. When Elon Musk highlighted Tesla’s autopilot employees in a recent interview, he disclosed Ashok Elluswamy was the head of autopilot engineering.
Elluswamy works as a Tesla robotics engineer, specializing in computer vision, perception, planning, and control. Elluswamy was the organization’s first employee in 2015, around the time Musk issued a call for AI team hires.
Gwynne Shotwell
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s current president, and COO can be credited for most of the company’s success. Shotwell, 58, is regarded as another potential Tesla CEO. She joined Musk’s reusable rocket company Space X in 2002 and progressed to the position of COO, supervising day-to-day operations as well as customer and commercial interactions. She is now in control of a $74 billion corporation that sends manned flights to space from US land and launches hundreds of satellites in one shot on board reusable rockets.
Tom Zhu
Tesla just appointed Tom Zhu to the position of President of Tesla in China. Zhu oversees the electric carmaker’s US assembly factories, as well as sales activities in North America and Europe.
Zhu is in charge of operations at Tesla’s major manufacturing facilities as well as delivery in all of the company’s key locations. Zhu’s role as vice president for Greater China is still listed. He remains in charge of sales across the rest of Asia as well. Zhu’s reporting lines appear to represent Musk’s delegation for the EV maker’s global goals.
Drew Baglino
After Musk, Drew Baglino is the company’s most senior engineer. He is the driving force behind the transition to a next-generation EV powertrain that employs cutting-edge 4680 battery cells. He is in charge of Tesla’s global “supercharger” implementation.
Baglino is a top candidate to run Tesla because he has a long history with the company and is the company’s most senior employee behind Musk. He began working for the organization in 2004. Baglino has also served as VP of technology, director of engineering for Tesla Energy, model S powertrain architect, and in other positions during the last decade.
Herbert Diess
Herbert Diess, the former CEO of German automaker Volkswagen, saw Musk as a healthy rival, but they were also supporters of each other.
Diess brought Musk to the VW facility in Germany and requested that he give a motivational speech to VW officials. “Diesel deserves a lot of credit for moving VW rapidly towards electrification.” “They’re lucky to have him.” Musk wrote in April. “They’re lucky to have him.”
RJ Scaringe
Rivian, another EV startup, is founded and led by RJ Scaringe. He has shown himself to be an expert fundraiser. While Scaringe is far quieter in public than Musk, he is no less personable, more athletic, and an engineer at heart. He received $11 billion in funding from a consortium of investors that included Blackrock and Amazon. Rivian has also ordered 100,000 delivery vans from Jeff Bezos’ firm. Rivian produced 24,337 automobiles and delivered 20,332 vehicles in 2022.
John Krafcik
Waymo, a self-driving car initiative, was run by John Krafcik, 61. After five years as CEO of Hyundai North America, he spent a year as President of the online car-shopping site TrueCar before becoming CEO of Waymo, Google’s autonomous-vehicle subsidiary, in 2015.
Krafcik’s resume includes jobs supervising many of the activities he would be responsible for as Tesla’s CEO, such as engineering, product development, production, online retail, and the development of self-driving technology.
Aicha Evans
Zoox’s CEO, Aicha Evans, is in charge of executing one of the most ambitious and complex business plans in the autonomous vehicle market. If the company succeeds, Evans may become a top contender for other electric and autonomous car startups looking for a new CEO. Evans solved Zoox’s fundraising challenge by selling the company to Amazon for $1.2 billion. Zoox is currently focusing on building a ride-hailing service, initially in the United States.
Peter Rawlinson
The CEO of Lucid Motors Before joining Lucid in 2013, Rawlinson was a key executive at Tesla. He led the development of Tesla’s Model S, one of the most recognizable cars of the decade.
JB Straubel
Since 2004, JB Straubel has been Elon Musk’s, right-hand man. Straubel spent a large chunk of his time as Tesla’s No. 5 employee creating the company’s young operations and meeting its early obligations. Straubel eventually pursued Redwood more aggressively because of his interest in battery recycling, and he is still in the race.