Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja resigns once again

CEO Elon Musk announced that Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja is leaving the organization and retiring after being associated with the company for almost 11 years.  

This is the second time he would be leaving the company. He had earlier parted ways from Tesla in 2015 after being in the company for 8 years and had later rejoined Tesla in 2017, replacing then-CFO Jason Wheeler, who abruptly resigned.

The responsibility to now lead the financial agenda of one of the leading American automotive company will now shift to Zach Kirkhorn. 

Ahuja congratulated Zach Kirkhorn for his new role and said, “I feel really good about Zach taking over. He's proven his self over the years with many tough challenges he's worked on."

Kirkhorn brings in more than 12 years of experience and has been working with Tesla since 2010. He joined the company as the Senior Analyst – Finance and since then has grown in the company to now head the finance function for the whole business. Before joining Tesla TSLA, Kirkhorn was formerly a business analyst at McKinsey & Co. and has also worked in Microsoft. 

Now as Kirkhorn takes on the role of CFO he remains optimistic about the new opportunities lying ahead for the business. He said, “I feel we're starting 2019 with a very strong financial foundation. We have enough cash to start new programs and develop new technologies."

Tesla's finance team witnessed a high turnover in the past year with one Chief Accounting Officer, Dave Morton, spending less than a month at the company. Besides this Tesla has seen a few senior exits in the past six months including Charles Mwangi, a Senior Director of Engineering who had been with Tesla since 2012, and one of Tesla's first-ever sales hires, Jeremy Snyder, who left his role as head of global business development there in August. 

Tesla, therefore, may now have a new agenda to deal with in 2019, overcoming the impact of these exits and sustaining and scaling its business by strengthening its leadership, building a stronger culture and investing more in talent.