Tesla’s Omead Afshar, who is widely known as CEO Elon Musk’s right-hand man, has reportedly left the company.

Several outlets are reporting that Afshar either left voluntarily or was potentially terminated on Thursday. His LinkedIn profile has not been updated to reflect this, and still states he presently works at Tesla in the “Office of the CEO.”

Afshar was promoted to Head of North American sales and European operations late last year. We reported on his promotion in October, as he was previously a Project Manager in the Office of the CEO before Musk and co. stepped up his responsibilities.

According to the initial report on Afshar’s departure from Bloomberg, the news has been circulating throughout the company in recent days. His name no longer appears in the company’s internal directory.

It is interesting to think about what could have caused this. Tesla has felt some pressure in Europe with struggling sales figures in some markets. It is the second-best-selling EV maker in the region, with Volkswagen performing slightly better for the year, according to EU-EVs.

Tesla’s Model Y is the best-selling EV in the region.

While the company has not directly confirmed the news, it appears to be true based on the reports.

Tesla is usually relatively quick to dispel any headlines that go out from mainstream media that are not factual. This has yet to be responded to by any executive, including Musk.

Afshar has been with Tesla for seven years and ten months, first joining in September 2017 as a Project Manager in the Office of the CEO.

He then became a Project Director, before his job title was updated to a Cowboy hat emoji in July 2020, around the time Tesla started moving some things to Texas.

Forbes is reporting that Afshar was terminated and did not leave voluntarily. This has yet to be confirmed.

The City of Memphis has released initial air quality test results from three sites across the city, including one near Elon Musk’s xAI data center in South Memphis. 

According to city officials, the results showed no dangerous levels of pollutants. “At every site and for every pollutant tested, levels were either too low to detect or well below established safety thresholds,” the city’s report read.

xAI Welcomes Air Quality Test Results

Tests were conducted at Macedonia Church in Boxtown, The Links at Whitehaven, and City Hall Downtown. Memphis Mayor Paul Young stated that the data only represents a “snapshot in time” and that continued monitoring will take place.

“The City doesn’t control air quality regulations, but we stepped up to find answers. The initial results showed no dangerous levels of air pollutants at any of the tested sites. We are committed to ongoing testing to continue to inform and protect our community,” Mayor Young stated.

xAI, which opened a facility in Boxtown to house its Colossus supercomputer, welcomed the city’s initial findings. The artificial intelligence startup shared its comments in a post on social media platform X.

“xAI welcomes the independent third-party data showing no dangerous pollutant levels at test sites near our Memphis data center. We have built a world-class data center in Memphis and we couldn’t have done it without the support of the local community and its leaders,” the company stated.

Critics Are Not Satisfied

Environmental advocates and local leaders, however, were not satisfied with the city’s initial tests. The Southern Environmental Law Center criticized the city’s approach, arguing that smog-forming emissions, including nitrogen oxides from xAI’s turbines, pose health risks that the city’s testing did not account for, as noted in a FOX 13 Memphis report.

“The city failed to measure ozone pollution–better known as smog–which we already know is a major problem in the Memphis area… As community members have warned for the last year, smog-forming pollution is a major concern with the unpermitted turbines being run at xAI’s South Memphis data center,” the group noted.

State Representative Justin J. Pearson (D-Memphis) echoed the group’s criticism.

“We do not need any more misleading reports that are more concerned with finding a conclusion conducive to Mayor Young’s unwavering support of xAI, rather than discovering the truth. Our review of the information released by the City of Memphis earlier this evening revealed a glaring and critical omission in their pollution testing and results: the monitoring of ozone which is a considerable factor in air pollution problems in Memphis,” he noted.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has teased new progress on the company’s humanoid robot, Optimus. In a brief post on X, Musk shared that he had an “excellent review” with the Tesla Optimus team. He also confirmed that Optimus V3 is already using Grok voice assistant in a later reply. 

Musk’s recent posts suggest that the development of Tesla’s humanoid robot is advancing steadily behind the scenes.

Grok Already Integrated

Musk’s recent comments about Optimus were shared on social media platform X. Initially, Musk posted that Optimus V3 would be (chef’s kiss), and that he just had an excellent review with the humanoid robot’s team. Considering Musk’s post, it was no surprise that some Tesla fans asked if Optimus would be able to talk using Grok, xAI’s large language model. Musk confirmed that Optimus “already does.” 

Grok’s integration with Optimus may allow the robot to interact more naturally with its environment and users. Tesla previously noted that Optimus will rely on the same neural networks powering its Autopilot and FSD systems. The addition of Grok could then make Optimus even more user-friendly for regular consumers.

Closer to Production

The current iteration of Optimus features Tesla-designed actuators, improved limb control, and more human-like proportions. Recent demo videos released by the company showed Optimus units walking unassisted, balancing in place, and working in Tesla factories, among other tasks. Musk has also highlighted that Optimus would have upgraded hands with 22 degrees of freedom, close to a human hand.

Musk noted during the company’s Q1 2025 All Hands meeting that Tesla may be able to produce around 5,000 units this year. “This year, we hopefully will be able to make about 5,000 Optimus robots. We’re technically aiming for enough parts to make 10,000, maybe 12,000, but since it’s a totally new product with a totally new, like everything is totally new, I’ll say we’re succeeding if we get to half go the 10,000. But even 5,000 robots, that’s the size of a Roman legion, FYI,” Musk said during the meeting.