Tesla's North America service chief exits company
Leaving Tesla was hard due to "the first principle thinking and the getting stuff done mentality" at the company, Landolfi said in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.
Landolfi has joined AI robotics and autonomous e-commerce technology company Nimble as its senior vice president of operations, per his LinkedIn profile.
His move is the latest departure from the electric carmaker, joining Troy Jones, Tesla's top sales executive in North America, who left in July after 15 years with the company.
Raj Jegannathan, a senior executive with a wide purview including several IT and data functions, recently took over the sales role, Reuters reported exclusively last month.
Other key figures who left include Omead Afshar, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's confidant, who was in charge of sales and manufacturing operations in North America and Europe.
Milan Kovac, the head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot team, announced he was leaving in June. Other recent departures include top battery executive Vineet Mehta and software chief David Lau.
Musk's EV maker posted the worst quarterly sales decline in more than a decade and profit that missed Wall Street targets in July. Its profit margin on making cars, however, was better than many feared.
Musk had said US government cuts in support for EV makers could lead to a "few rough quarters" for Tesla before a wave of revenue from self-driving software and services begins late next year.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Citizen
2 days ago
- The Citizen
Municipality warns of new job scam
Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) is warning residents about a new job scam targeting vulnerable job seekers. 'In this latest scam, fraudsters are falsely advertising a 12-month fixed-term contract for the position of Senior Practitioner in Acquisition Management,' said MCLM communications officer, Refilwe Mahlangu. She added that the scammer instructs applicants to send CVs to [email protected]. Mahlangu reiterated that the municipality only advertises vacancies in selected national newspapers, on their official website, and on their LinkedIn page. If a job listing is not on these platforms, it is not legitimate. 'Anyone posing as a recruiter, consultant, or using unofficial channels is committing fraud. Do not respond, share personal information, or make any payments,' she concluded.
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Trump orders easing of commercial space flight rules, in boon to Musk's SpaceX
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to streamline federal regulation governing commercial rocket launches, a move that could benefit Elon Musk's SpaceX and other private space ventures. Trump's order, among other things, directs the US transportation secretary to eliminate or expedite environmental reviews for launch licences administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, the White House said. The declaration also calls on the secretary to do away with 'outdated, redundant or overly restrictive rules for launch and re-entry vehicles'. 'Inefficient permitting processes discourage investment and innovation, limiting the ability of US companies to lead in global space markets,' the executive order states. While Musk and Trump had a high-profile falling out months ago, the billionaire entrepreneur's SpaceX rocket and satellite venture potentially stands to be the single biggest immediate beneficiary of Trump's order on Wednesday. SpaceX, though not mentioned by name in Trump's order, easily leads all US space industry entities, including NASA, in the sheer number of launches it routinely conducts for its own satellite network, the US space agency, the Pentagon and other enterprises. Jeff Bezos' private rocket company Blue Origin and its space tourism business could also gain from a more relaxed regulatory regime. Musk has repeatedly complained that environmental impact studies, post-flight mishap investigations and licensing reviews required by the FAA have needlessly slowed testing of SpaceX's Starship rocket, under development at the company's South Texas launch facility. Starship is the centrepiece of Musk's long-term SpaceX business model, as well as a core component of NASA's ambitions for returning astronauts to the moon's surface, establishing a permanent human lunar presence and ultimately sending crewed missions to Mars. Musk has viewed FAA oversight as a hindrance to his company's engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry's more established players. SpaceX's flight-test strategy is known for pushing spacecraft prototypes to the point of failure, then fine-tuning improvements through frequent repetition. This has appeared to run afoul at times with the FAA's mission of safeguarding the public and the environment as it exercises its regulatory jurisdiction over commercial space flight. Earlier this year, the FAA grounded Starship test flights for nearly two months after back-to-back post-launch explosions rained debris over Caribbean islands and forced dozens of airliners to change course. The FAA ended up expanding the aircraft hazard zone along Starship's launch trajectories before licensing future flights.
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- TimesLIVE
'Tesla shame' bypasses Norway as sales jump despite Musk's politics
Like many Norwegians, Espen Lysholm is not a fan of Elon Musk these days, uncomfortable with the world's richest man's lurch into right-wing politics. He does, however, love Musk's cars. 'I'll be honest that it's a bit of a double-edged sword having a Tesla,' said Lysholm, who bought a Model Y in May — his third new Tesla in less than a decade. Musk's politics — he helped bankroll Donald Trump's US election win last year and has championed European far-right parties — have sparked a fierce consumer backlash. But while that anger has provoked acts of vandalism against Tesla cars and dealerships and pushed once loyal customers, particularly in Europe, to ditch the brand, sales in tiny Norway are booming, at least for now. 'I did think a bit around all that's going on with the company and the brand,' said Lysholm, who works at a cartech company in the city of Trondheim. 'But it's really all about the charging infrastructure and the seamless technology of the car. No one comes even close.' In the first half of this year as Tesla sales plunged by half or more in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, they grew by 24% year on year in Norway, making the country of 5.5-million the company's second-largest European market. Tesla and Musk did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Reuters interviews with Norwegian Tesla owners as well as EV industry experts highlight a 12-year relationship between the Nordic nation and the carmaker that, despite recent signs of strain, has bred brand loyalty and insulated against blowback. 'In many ways, you could say Norway helped build Tesla,' said Christina Bu, secretary-general of the Norwegian EV Association. 'Everyone in Norway knows someone who owns a Tesla,' she said. 'It's more personal.'
