{"id":94983,"date":"2025-09-30T15:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/94983\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T15:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:42:11","slug":"elon-musk-hit-by-exodus-of-senior-staff-over-burnout-and-politics-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/94983\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk hit by exodus of senior staff over burnout and politics \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk\u2019s <\/a>business empire has been hit by a wave of senior departures over the past year, as the billionaire\u2019s relentless demands and political activism accelerate turnover among his top ranks.<\/p>\n

Key members of Tesla\u2019s US sales team<\/a>, battery and power-train operations, public affairs arm, and its chief information officer have all recently departed, as well as core members of the Optimus robot and artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> teams on which Musk has bet the future of the company.<\/p>\n

Churn has been even more rapid at xAI, Musk\u2019s two-year-old artificial intelligence start-up, which he merged with his social network X <\/a>in March. Its chief financial officer (CFO) and general counsel recently departed after short stints, within a week of each other.<\/p>\n

The moves are part of an exodus from the conglomerate of the world\u2019s richest man, as he juggles five companies from SpaceX to Tesla with more than 140,000 employees. The Financial Times spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees to gain an insight into the tumult.<\/p>\n

While many left happily after long service to found start-ups or take career breaks, there has also been an uptick in those quitting from burnout, or disillusionment with Musk\u2019s strategic pivots, mass lay-offs and his politics, the people said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one constant in Elon\u2019s world is how quickly he burns through deputies,\u201d said one of the billionaire\u2019s advisers. \u201cEven the board jokes, there\u2019s time and then there\u2019s \u2018Tesla time\u2019. It\u2019s a 24\/7 campaign-style work ethos. Not everyone is cut out for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Keele, xAI\u2019s general counsel, ended his 16-month tenure in early August by posting an AI-generated video of a suited lawyer screaming while shovelling molten coal. \u201cI love my two toddlers and I don\u2019t get to see them enough,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n

\"\"The NFL comes to Dublin: How it became the richest sports league in the world<\/p>\n

Mike Liberatore lasted three months as xAI chief financial officer before defecting to Musk\u2019s arch-rival Sam Altman at OpenAI. \u201c102 days \u2013 7 days per week in the office; 120+ hours per week; I love working hard,\u201d he said on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

Top lieutenants said Musk\u2019s intensity has been sharpened by the launch of ChatGPT in late-2022, which shook up the established Silicon Valley order.<\/p>\n

Employees also perceive Musk\u2019s rivalry with Altman \u2013 with whom he cofounded OpenAI, before they fell out \u2013 to be behind the pressure being put on staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon\u2019s got a chip on his shoulder from ChatGPT and is spending every waking moment trying to put Sam out of business,\u201d said one recent top departee.<\/p>\n

Last week, xAI accused its rival of poaching engineers with the aim of \u201cplundering and misappropriating\u201d its code and data centre secrets. OpenAI called the lawsuit \u201cthe latest chapter in Musk\u2019s ongoing harassment\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Altman of OpenAI. <\/p>\n

Other insiders pointed to unease about Musk\u2019s support of Donald Trump and advocacy for far-right provocateurs in the US and Europe.<\/p>\n

They said some staff dreaded difficult conversations with their families about Musk\u2019s polarising views on everything from the rights of transgender people to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

Musk, Tesla and xAI declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Tesla has traditionally been the most stable part of Musk\u2019s conglomerate. But many of the top team left after it culled 14,000 jobs in April 2024. Some departures were triggered as Musk moved investment away from new electric vehicle<\/a> (EV) and battery projects that many employees saw as key to its mission of reducing global emissions \u2013 and prioritised robotics, AI and self-driving robotaxis.<\/p>\n

Musk cancelled a programme to build a low-cost $25,000 (\u20ac21,000) EV that could be sold across emerging markets \u2013 dubbed NV-91 internally and Model 2 by fans online, according to five people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n

Daniel Ho, who helped oversee the project as director of vehicle programmes and reported directly to Musk, left in September 2024 and joined Google\u2019s self-driving taxi arm, Waymo.<\/p>\n

\"Google’sGoogle\u2019s self-driving taxi arm, Waymo. Photograph: Andri Tambunan\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Public policy executives Rohan Patel and Hasan Nazar and the head of the power-train and energy units Drew Baglino also stepped down after the pivot. Rebecca Tinucci, leader of the supercharger division, went to Uber after Musk fired the entire team and slowed construction on high-speed charging stations.<\/p>\n

In late summer, David Zhang, who was in charge of the Model Y and Cybertruck roll-outs, departed. Chief information officer Nagesh Saldi left in November.<\/p>\n

Vineet Mehta, a company veteran of 18 years, described as \u201ccritical to all things battery\u201d by a colleague, resigned in April. Milan Kovac, in charge of Optimus humanoid robotics programme, departed in June. <\/p>\n

He was followed this month by Ashish Kumar, the Optimus AI team lead, who moved to Meta. \u201cFinancial upside at Tesla was significantly larger,\u201d wrote Kumar on X in response to criticism he left for money. \u201cTesla is known to compensate pretty well, way before Zuck made it cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid a sharp fall in sales \u2013 which many blame on Musk alienating liberal customers \u2013 Omead Ashfar, a close confidant known as the billionaire\u2019s \u201cfirefighter\u201d and \u201cexecutioner\u201d, was dismissed as head of sales and operations in North America in June. Ashfar\u2019s deputy Troy Jones followed shortly after, ending 15 years of service.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon\u2019s behaviour is affecting morale, retention and recruitment,\u201d said one long-standing lieutenant. He \u201cwent from a position from where people of all stripes liked him, to only a certain section\u201d.<\/p>\n

Few who depart criticise Musk for fear of retribution. But Giorgio Balestrieri, who had worked for Tesla for eight years in Spain, is among a handful to go public, saying this month he quit believing that Musk had done \u201chuge damage to Tesla\u2019s mission and to the health of democratic institutions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Tesla and my time there,\u201d said another recent leaver. \u201cBut nobody that I know there isn\u2019t thinking about politics. Who the hell wants to put up with it? I get calls at least once a week. My advice is, if your moral compass is saying you need to leave, that isn\u2019t going to go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Tesla chair Robyn Denholm said: \u201cThere are always headlines about people leaving, but I don\u2019t see the headlines about people joining.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur bench strength is outstanding … we actually develop people really well at Tesla and we are still a magnet for talent.\u201d <\/p>\n

At xAI, some staff have balked at Musk\u2019s free-speech absolutism and perceived lax approach to user safety as he rushes out new AI features to compete with OpenAI and Google. Over the summer, the Grok chatbot integrated into X praised Adolf Hitler, after Musk ordered changes to make it less \u201cwoke\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ex-CFO Liberatore was among the executives that clashed with some of Musk\u2019s inner circle over corporate structure and tough financial targets, people with knowledge of the matter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon loyalists who exhibit his traits are laying off people and making decisions on safety that I think are very concerning for people internally,\u201d one of the people added. \u201cMike is a business guy, a capitalist. But he\u2019s also someone who does stuff the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal first reported some of the details of the internal disputes.<\/p>\n

\"LindaLinda Yaccarino resigned from X in July. Photograph: Tawni Bannister\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, resigned in July after the social media platform was subsumed by xAI. She had grown frustrated with Musk\u2019s unilateral decision-making and his criticism over advertising revenue.<\/p>\n

xAI\u2019s co-founder and chief engineer, Igor Babuschkin, stepped down a month later to found his own AI safety research project.<\/p>\n

Communications executives Dave Heinzinger and John Stoll, spent three and nine months at X respectively, before returning to their former employers, according to people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n

X also lost a rash of senior engineers and product staff who reported directly to Musk and were helping to navigate the integration with xAI.<\/p>\n

This includes head of product engineering Haofei Wang and consumer product and payments boss Patrick Traughber. Uday Ruddarraju, who oversaw X and xAI\u2019s infrastructure engineering, and infrastructure engineer Michael Dalton were poached by OpenAI. <\/p>\n

Musk shows no sign of relenting. xAI\u2019s flirtatious \u201cAni bot\u201d has caused controversy over sexually explicit interactions with teenage Grok app users. But the company\u2019s owner has installed a hologram of Ani in the lobby of xAI to greet staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the boss, the alpha and anyone who doesn\u2019t treat him that way, he finds a way to delete,\u201d one former top Tesla executive said.\u201d He does not have shades of grey, is highly calculated, and focused … that makes him hard to work with. But if you\u2019re aligned with the end goal, and you can grin and bear it, it\u2019s fine. A lot of people do.\u201d Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s business empire has been hit by a wave of senior departures over the past year, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[289,79,18,8888,1647,19,17,1298,879],"class_list":{"0":"post-94983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-electric-vehicles","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-tesla","16":"tag-x"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}