Tesla execs Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel leave as company lays off 10%

Two high-profile executives have departed Tesla the same day that the electric automaker laid off thousands of workers, TechCrunch has confirmed.

Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Energy, and Rohan Patel, VP of Public Policy and Business Development have left the company, Patel told TechCrunch. Patel said he decided to leave because of “[b]ig overall changes” at the company that he declined to specify. Their departures were first reported by Bloomberg.

“Good for me and hopefully also good for Tesla,” Patel said in a message to TechCrunch. “Had an amazing run and accomplished way more than I could’ve ever imagined, as a result of working with the best policy/bizdev team in the business.” Baglino said in a post on X that it was a “difficult decision” to leave after 18 years at Tesla. Tesla CEO Elon Musk thanked both of them for their time at the company in posts on his social media platform, X.

Their departures come as Tesla is laying off thousands of employees in a bid to cut costs and boost productivity, according to an internal email sent to staff by Musk, which Electrek and Bloomberg News first reported. The electric automaker is cutting “more than 10%” of its global headcount, Musk said in the email. Tesla finished 2023 with over 140,000 employees, meaning the cuts could impact more than 14,000 people.