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Chief financial officer (CFO)
The gist:
Comments: "This is a big surprise to
More details:
- His successor has already been found in the person of
Vaibhav Taneja , who holds the position of chief accounting officer and will combine both positions,Tesla reported in the legal document. - The company stressed that it had experienced "tremendous expansion and growth" during Kirkhorn's tenure and that he will remain on staff until the end of the year to support the transition.
- The departure is officially taking place "amicably" between the two parties. Still, speculation is buzzing about the reasons for his exit.
Theory 1: the job is finished
- Arriving in 2010 as a senior financial analyst, Kirkhorn climbed to chief financial officer in 2019. In this position, he brought order to
Tesla's finances. Until then, the company was showing bad financial habits and losing more and more money, up to a billion dollars in cash each quarter. -
Under Kirkhorn,
Tesla became profitable and about$10 billion in debt was paid off during the last three years of his tenure. All that, of course, strengthenedTesla's credit rating. -
He also helped increase
Tesla's market capitalization, which reached$50 billion in 2019 and is now worth more than$770 billion . "Most of the work atTesla is done," Ives concludes. In other words, he has broughtTesla to where he wanted it and can now move on to a new adventure.
Theory 2: Musk won't budge
The American medium claims that Kirkhorn's decision is related to the fact that
Theory 3: feud with Musk
What is most shocking about this announcement is its immediate effect. According to
- "Nowhere in the stock market report does it say that Zach has resigned," he noted. "This opens the door to the question: was Zach fired? Or did he disagree with Elon on certain aspects of strategy (price declines/margins) or succession (perhaps Zach was told he was not a candidate for the CEO position)?"
- "Either way, the instinctive market reaction to the departure of financial executives is that it is usually associated with bad news. Since nothing about $TSLA is 'normal,' I wouldn't jump to that conclusion."
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