Tesla shuffling top sales leadership as deliveries of its EVs continue to fall

Tesla Inc.’s Gigafactory Texas is seen in September. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman)

Facing slumping demand for its electric vehicles, Tesla Inc. is making another change at the top of its sales leadership.

Vice President Raj Jegannathan is leaving the Austin company after 13 years. With his departure from Gigafactory Texas, Tesla reportedly is giving Joe Ward, Tesla’s vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, responsibility for global sales.

Jegannathan’s title was vice president of information technology and AI infrastructure, business apps and information security. But he took on responsibility for North American sales last year after the departure of Troy Jones, who’d been with the company for 15 years.

Sales have continued to fall in the U.S. and other key markets.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the latest shuffle.

Citing unidentified sources, Bloomberg first reported Ward will lead the company’s global sales, service and delivery organization. He has risen through Tesla’s sales organization since joining as a logistics intern in 2010.

Amid two years of falling sales, the company has seen an exodus of talent. As deliveries declined 9% last year to 1.64 million vehicles, Tesla lost its crown as the world’s largest EV maker to Chinese rival BYD.

Other notable departures in the past year include Omead Afshar, who oversaw Tesla’s manufacturing and operations in North America and Europe until he was fired last summer by CEO Elon Musk.

Jenna Ferrua, Tesla’s North American director of human resources, departed in June. David Lau, vice president of software engineering, left last year after more than a decade at the company. Siddhant Awasthi, the program manager for Tesla’s Cybertruck and Model 3, left in November. And Vineet Mehta, who oversaw architecture, exited in April after 17 years with Tesla.

Also last year, Milan Kovac, who was vice president of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robotics program, left Tesla after nearly a decade. The company now is preparing for production of the robot in Fremont, Calif., and Musk has said Gigafactory Texas will produce its next generation model.

In a social media post this week, Jegannathan said his career at Tesla had been one of “continuous evolution.”

“From the technical intricacies of designing, building, and operating one of the world’s largest AI clusters to impactful contributions in IT, Security, Sales, and Service, it has been a privilege to serve,” he wrote on LinkedIn.