Tesla has lost the new boss for its EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) after less than a year. The Swiss Sascha Zahnd had only taken over the position in summer 2019, and his predecessor Jan Oehmicke had only been in office for about a year. Zahnd should now leave Tesla again, the German manager magazine reported on Friday, citing insiders. Among other things, there should have been “quarrels” with CEO Elon Musk. A well-informed person in the immediate vicinity of Tesla confirmed teslamag.de that the report was essentially correct.
Tesla manager wanted to go to Europe
The Swiss tooth was, according to his LinkedIn profile, vice president for the global supply chain of Tesla since May 2016 before taking over the VP position for the EMEA region; on Friday evening, this information had not changed. According to a report by Electrek, Zahnd worked closely with Tesla CEO Musk in the United States. He was offered the position as head of Europe because he wanted to return to Europe and therefore quit.
Whether Zahnd Tesla now wants to leave on his own initiative and the time for it is not specified in a freely available abstract of the article in Manager magazine. In such a central position, dismissal from any side should quickly be followed by an exemption from all activities. According to Electrek, Zahnd was responsible for all of Tesla’s operations in EMEA, including service and sales, as well as the Gigafactory being built near Berlin.
No details on dispute with Tesla boss
The summary does not indicate to which point or which points the reported disagreement between the Tesla boss and his European governor referred. The Tesla Model 3 was the best-selling electric car in Europe at the first quarter of this year. Preparations for the German Gigafactory since the end of 2019 initially went almost smoothly. However, at the beginning of April it became known that subsequent changes to the application were necessary for its foundation.
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