Who runs Tesla: The top power players at Elon Musk’s…

Who runs Tesla: The top power players at Elon Musk’s biggest company

(Credit: Ludovic Marin—AFP/Getty Images; Courtesy of Tesla)

Since taking control of Tesla in 2008, Musk has relied on several executives to help make it the biggest EV manufacturer in the world. One top Musk lieutenant is Omead Afshar, a former ski instructor who has worked for Tesla for more than six years and lists his most recent position as Office of the CEO. Afshar oversaw construction of Gigafactory Texas and moved to SpaceX in late 2022 where he's working on the Starship deep space rocket. Then there’s Andrew Baglino, a senior vice president for powertrain and energy engineering at Tesla, who is considered a top candidate to succeed Musk. (Baglino, who has spent nearly 18 years at Tesla, is also the company’s most senior engineer behind Musk.) Charles Kuehmann, the former director of product design at Apple, works for both Tesla and SpaceX where he is currently VP materials engineering. He is credited with helping develop the steel alloy used for Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck. Some of Musk’s closest advisors have left him but haven’t gone far. Consider JB Straubel, who was CTO of Tesla for nearly 16 years and is considered a cofounder. Straubel went on to launch Redwood Materials, which focuses on recycling lithium-ion batteries, but he also sits on Tesla’s board. Here's a look at the top executives running Tesla now.

Elon Musk

Tesla CEO, Technoking, and board member

Executives

Tom Zhu

Senior vice president
Zhu was named senior vice president, automotive, in April 2023. He was previously vice president, Greater China. Frequently referred to as chief of Tesla China and the second most powerful person at Tesla.