Tom Zhu, Chief Executive Elon Musk’s second in command at Tesla, is set to return to China as Vice President amid the ongoing shakeup in the electric automaker.
Tom Zhu to return as Tesla China’s VP
Current Senior Vice President of Automotive, Tom Zhu, will go back to his former responsibilities as Vice President for Greater China, EV reports, citing several auto bloggers’ Weibo posts on Monday.
The news seems to be part of CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to isolate himself at the top of the organization.
Tom Zhu’s return to his home country may primarily aim to accelerate the Full Self-Driving (FSD) software launch in China. The company has already obtained automotive data security clearance owing to its partnership with Baidu for an advanced mapping system.
Tom Zhu’s leadership
Tom Zhu has long been leading Tesla China’s operations, delivering the enormous success of the Giga Shanghai.
The Chinese factory quickly advanced to become Tesla’s top-performing production plant globally. That said, CEO Elon Musk even assigned Tom Zhu to supervise all Tesla gigafactories in late 2022.
Zhu’s remarkable leadership earned him an even higher position at the electric vehicle giant. At the time, CEO Musk was preoccupied with his newly purchased social media platform X (former Twitter).
The Chinese executive became the head of Tesla’s North American sales and Senior Vice President of Automotive behind Elon Musk. Zhu earned a spot in the “leadership” at Tesla.
However, CEO Musk reportedly retrieved North American sales operations from Zhu in recent months. Recent reports from several unnamed sources also claimed that the Chinese executive was leaving his position at Tesla in North America.
Now, Chinese media are reporting that Tom Zhu is indeed returning to China to supervise the company’s local operations there.
Company shakeup
The recent layoffs and executive departures demonstrate CEO Elon Musk’s isolation at the top.
Tesla needs to determine key executives who need to report their stock holdings and transactions to the SEC. While its official leadership is already heavily limited for such an enormous company size, it still further cut the lineup by 50% in just a month.
The leadership included Elon Musk, Valibhav Taneja, Andrew Baligno, and Tom Zhu. However, it now excludes the latter two executives. Notably, investors see both Zhu and Baligno as potential successors of CEO Elon Musk or even COO to support him.
Meanwhile, the Tesla boss’ $47 billion compensation pay hangs in the balance.
