Another executive is parting ways with Tesla Inc.
Sendil Palani, vice president of finance, is leaving after 17 years with the Austin automaker, the latest departure in a series of exits in recent months.
Over the years, he has held roles as manufacturing project manager and director of engineering finance, which included a focus on product development for vehicle products and Autopilot’s hardware and software. Palani has been VP of finance since 2021.
He started at the automaker shortly after investors committed $40 million to help the company out of financial trouble in November 2008. At that time, Tesla was boasting it had delivered more than 50 Roadsters, the vehicle that came before the Model S debuted in 2012 and attracted sales that helped Tesla turn its first quarterly profit.
Reflecting on the earlier days of Tesla, Palani wrote that it “barely survived Christmas 2008.”
“I started a few days later in our Finance team, under an ongoing ‘Tesla Deathwatch.’ I slept under my desk in San Carlos, CA at least once, and I wasn’t the only one,” Palani wrote. “There are many companies with hard-working and talented employees, but few have the level of commitment and collaboration of the Tesla team.”
Last year, Tesla leaders who left included David Lau, vice president of software engineering; Siddhant Awasthi, program manager for Cybertruck and Model 3; and Jenna Ferrua, North American director of human resources. The head of battery architecture Vineet Mehta recently left, along with Milan Kovac, who was vice president of the Optimus humanoid robotics program.
But Palani parted with an optimistic outlook on the Austin automaker, saying its mission is “so ambitious and complex that any narrative about the company is naturally an oversimplification.”
He went on to praise CEO Elon Musk writing, “a heartfelt thanks for your endless love of humanity, and for demonstrating the power of thinking from first principles at all times, about all things.”
