Tesla has reportedly promoted CEO Elon Musk’s right-hand man to a much bigger role.
Omead Afshar has been at Tesla since September 2018 and held positions like Project Manager and Project Director in the Office of the CEO until July 2020, when he updated his position to a Cowboy emoji in July 2020, the same date Gigafactory Texas started construction.
Afshar is now being promoted to a new role with more responsibility, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, which stated he will be overseeing operations in North America and Europe.
While he will report directly to Musk, two senior executives, one in North America and one in Europe, will now report to him.
At one time, Afshar was the subject of an internal investigation related to a glass purchase for the Texas production plant.
The “secret project,” as it was reportedly called by Afshar, that the glass purchase was related to was then linked to a house that Musk was going to build near Gigafactory Texas.
Several employees were terminated as a result of the incident, Bloomberg reported.
This occurred back in July 2022, two years after Afshar started at Gigafactory Texas.
The position Afshar is assuming now was formerly held by Tom Zhu, who was titled as a Senior Vice President. Zhu moved back to China earlier this year to help with Tesla’s position in China, where he helped the automaker gain entry into the market several years ago.
Afshar has yet to update his LinkedIn profile for the new role.
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