In the past week, 4 of Elon Musk’s direct reports have announced their exits from Tesla

Elon Musk has lost eight of his direct reports at Tesla over the past year.

Tesla has been shedding executives ahead of its Robotaxi event, with four of Elon Musk’s direct reports announcing over the past week that they were leaving or had already left the company.

Tesla employees were informed on Thursday during an all-hands meeting that the chief information officer, Nagesh Saldi, was leaving the carmaker after nearly 12 years at the company, three workers told B-17. The workers asked not to be identified to avoid professional reprisal. Bloomberg was the first to report on Saldi’s departure.

Tesla’s director of public policy and business development, Jos Dings, announced on LinkedIn on October 1 that he was leaving the company. On Sunday, the global vehicle automation and safety policy lead, Marc Van Impe, also announced on LinkedIn that he’d left Tesla.

Both Dings and Van Impe had reported to Tesla’s vice president of public policy and business development, Rohan Patel, before he left the carmaker in April. They began reporting directly to Musk after Patel’s departure.

On LinkedIn, Dings said he was taking a career break, and Van Impe said he was moving into an advisor role at SpaceX.

Van Impe had spent the past four years deploying Tesla’s driver-assist technology in global markets, according to his LinkedIn.

On Friday, Tesla’s former Model S and Model X program manager, David Zhang, also told his followers on LinkedIn that he’d left the company. Zhang’s updated LinkedIn profile shows him parting ways with Tesla in July, but he hadn’t previously commented publicly on his departure.

The carmaker’s former head of vehicle programs, Daniel Ho, formally announced on LinkedIn on September 29 that he’d left Tesla and joined Waymo as its new programs director.

Musk had previously announced Ho’s departure in April. He was one of several executives who parted ways with Tesla after Musk said the company would reduce its head count by more than 10%. Tesla’s senior vice president of powertrain and electrical engineering, Drew Baglino, and Rebecca Tinucci, the senior director of Supercharging, left in April.

In total, Musk has lost eight of his direct reports at Tesla over the past year. The Tesla CEO oversees more than 30 direct reports.

A spokesperson for Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment. The four executives also didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Some former workers say that in general, turnover at Tesla may be because of Musk’s leadership style.

“Every few years Elon comes in and slashes head count, or there’s a reorg, and it’s like you have to build everything from scratch again,” a former manager told B-17. “People get burned out from keeping up that kind of pace.”

Another former top-level employee said a growing number of workers within the company no longer believed in Musk’s vision, particularly after the billionaire turned his attention to his Twitter acquisition in 2022.

“A lot of people at Tesla are just tired of all the noise,” they said.

One former manager who chose to resign earlier this year said Tesla’s April layoffs made many high-level employees eye the exits. “We just kept fighting to keep our teams together,” they said, adding that “that shit takes its toll.”

Seven employees told B-17 that internally, there had been little chatter among workers regarding the departures.

“I think a lot of the company’s focus right now is on the Robotaxi event,” one Tesla employee said.

Tesla is set to provide its first demo of its self-driving technology during Robotaxi Day on Thursday. Over the years, Musk has repeatedly emphasized the importance of Tesla’s autonomous-driving technology to the company’s future.

The event is set to take place at Warner Bros studio in Burbank, California, and is expected to be livestreamed on X.

Tesla’s stock has seen significant volatility this year, hitting an intraday low of $138.80 on April 22 and an intraday high of $271 on July 11. Tesla’s share price was $244.50 at market close on Tuesday. Overall, the stock is down 1.5% from the start of 2024.