Tesla continues to shed talent as it tries to correct backsliding vehicle sales and pull off a pivot towards humanoid robots. By Stewart Burnett
Tesla Vice President Raj Jegannathan, recently promoted to Head of North America Sales, has announced his departure after 13 years at the automaker. Jegannathan took on the critical role when longtime sales head Troy Jones was dismissed in July 2025, marking the second time Tesla has lost its North American sales leader in the last year.
Jegannathan’s official title was lengthy even before taking on the sales job: Vice President of Information Technology, AI Infrastructure, Business Apps and Information Security. Despite having no prior experience in sales leadership he was selected for the role, likely due to his expertise in AI. During his time on the team, he worked to incorporate AI tools in sales and service workflows, reporting his progress directly to Chief Executive Elon Musk. He also became known for responding directly to sales and service requests on X shortly after taking the reins.
The departure is only the latest in a growing exodus of senior talent at Tesla, which began following its 10% workforce layoffs in April 2024, which included the entire Supercharger team. Recent notable departures in sales and service include Troy Jones in July 2025, as well as Vice President Omead Afshar, a close Musk confidante who led sales and manufacturing for North America and Europe in June 2025, and the head of service in North America in August 2025. Tesla’s North American Director of Service, Piero Landolfi, also departed the same month.
2025 also saw the departure of Milan Kovac, Head of Tesla’s robotics division, around the same time Musk became increasingly vocal about his company’s pivot towards AI and humanoid robots. The automaker’s 2025 disbanding of its Dojo supercomputer team notably coincided with the departure of around 20 workers to join DensityAI, a startup founded by former employees including former programme lead Ganesh Venkataramanan.
Tesla’s annual revenue declined 3% in 2025, marking the first year-over-year drop on record as the company faces an aging vehicle lineup and consumer backlash against Musk’s far-right political activism. The automaker experienced its most challenging year to date with simultaneous annual sales declines across all three primary markets: US deliveries fell by 7.1%, Chinese sales declined 4.8%, and European registrations plunged 27.9%. Global deliveries as a whole fell 8.6% to 1.64 million vehicles.
Jegannathan led the sales efforts while Musk worked with the federal government in the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ he created, before his May 2025 falling out with President Donald Trump. The department would be dismantled later the same year.
