Yesterday we ran a narrative primarily based on a report from PingWest that stated Elon Musk was contemplating Tesla China president Tom Zhu as his successor as CEO of Tesla’s international operations.
Whereas that report hasn’t been confirmed but and there aren’t some ways of confirming it aside from Elon Musk replying to questions on Twitter, Tom Zhu’s name is now mentioned again in a Bloomberg report that claims he has been flown in from China to assist oversee the ramp up of Giga Texas.
We won’t know for certain which of the 2 rumors are true—it could possibly be each—however we incline to consider the latter may need extra credibility to it seeing because the longtime Tesla govt additionally oversaw development of Giga Shanghai. The Chinese language plant is the corporate’s largest export hub and recently doubled annual capacity to about 1 million vehicles.
The report cites unnamed individuals acquainted with the matter as saying Tom Zhu is in Austin this week and has introduced alongside a few of his engineering workforce from China to help in overseeing the ramp of Giga Texas, a US hub for the Tesla Mannequin Y and the upcoming Cybertruck.
28 Images
The sources added it isn’t clear how lengthy Zhu might be in Austin for or whether or not he’ll retain his obligations in Asia. Tom Zhu joined Tesla in 2014 to assist construct the company’s Supercharger network and most just lately has been heading the automaker’s Asia Pacific operations.
The timing of the report is attention-grabbing as Tesla has been attempting to concurrently improve output at its latest factories in Texas and Berlin just lately. The corporate confirmed in October that Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg reached a production rate of 2,000 vehicles a week however did not present the same replace for Gigafactory Texas. The final replace for Austin was in June, when Tesla confirmed a weekly production rate of 1,000 vehicles.
The corporate initially deliberate to make Mannequin Y SUVs in Texas powered by its new, bigger 4680 lithium-ion cells on the plant however as a substitute pivoted to utilizing older 2170 cells as the brand new batteries weren’t prepared for quantity manufacturing.
The report additionally comes as Elon Musk has been busy working its latest acquisition, social media large Twitter. The billionaire entrepreneur can also be the CEO of SpaceX and tunneling agency The Boring Firm, in addition to the founding father of brain-chip developer Neuralink.
Musk’s buy of Twitter has sparked considerations about how he’s dividing time between his many firms; it has additionally taken a toll on Tesla‘s inventory, which is down about 50 % this yr.
