[Micele]

Een nieuwe Global CEO voor Tesla? Een potentiële opvolger van Elon Musk?

Met Tom Zhu zou dat wel eens snel kunnen, als Elon Musk zijn zegen geeft.

Eerst een gerucht van november, en dit artikel van 10 december 2022:

https://www.arenaev.com/tom_zhu_xiao...-news-1142.php

Tom Zhu Xiaotong to take over Tesla’s CEO job from Elon Musk

10 December 2022

Following last month’s testimony in court from James Murdoch, Tesla director, that Elon Musk already identified a potential new CEO for the company, the latest report from **PingWest claims it is Tom Zhu Xiaotong who is going to get the job.

Zhu is the President of Tesla China and has been with the company since 2014 when he joined to lead the expansion of the Supercharger network in China. He climbed through the ranks quickly being first promoted to Global Vice President and then taking over as President of Tesla China. Zhu was responsible for bringing Giga Shanghai online and for the introduction of Tesla Service Centers across the country.

This latest report from China makes a lot of sense, with Elon Musk increasingly spending more time at Twitter and preferring to be an engineer than a CEO. Antonio Gracias, former Tesla board member, confirmed the company was looking for an “administrative CEO” in order to allow Musk to focus on what he’s best at - being a chief product officer.

Elon Musk was always vocal about his dislike for the administrative part of his job, many times he admitted he literally hated it and he always preferred being an engineer.

Zhou is already in Texas overseeing the operations of Gigafactory on Elon Musk’s request. Bloomberg reported that this last minute appointment is simply to allow Zhou to get accustomed with how Tesla is operated in the US and prepare him for the new position.

There have been many calls for Elon Musk to leave his CEO post, with many investors voicing their disapproval of his latest Twitter saga and the effect it was having on the company’s share prices. Among a wider market turmoil, Tesla has been performing rather badly with its shares in a steady and constant fall.

The company could benefit greatly with a steady hand at the helm, Elon would get more time to fix Twitter and investors would finally get a decent night’s sleep. It’s gonna be interesting to see what’s the next move, Elon giving up CEO position would mean giving up his rather lucrative remuneration deal which means he would have to sell more Tesla shares to carry on funding SpaceX - unless SpaceX goes public which wouldn’t be a surprise at this point.

Source: https://carbuzz.com/news/elon-musk-i...bal-ceo-report

Tom Zhu en zijn ir-team helpt Giga Texas ook voor de Cybertruck serieproductie, moest dat ook vlot lukken zoals Giba Shanghai...:

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...ut-2022-12-21/

December 22, 2022

Tesla sends Shanghai boss and aides to jumpstart U.S. output

Dec 21 (Reuters) -

Tesla China chief Tom Zhu and a team of his reports has been brought in to troubleshoot production issues in the United States, fueling talk among colleagues he is being groomed for a bigger role at a time when Chief Executive Elon Musk has been distracted by Twitter.

Zhu, who heads Tesla's Asia operations, has been traveling with a team including Shanghai gigafactory manager, Song Gang, to Tesla's plants in California and Texas, and was there as recently as last week, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Both asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Ook filmpjes die hierbij passen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOC-eDAQvwk

[English Subtitled] Tesla China President Tom Zhu interviewed by Shanghai Media.

Meer via: https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...=tom+zhu+tesla

Uiteraard was het Musk zijn idee de tweede Gigafabriek in China te zetten, en dit met succes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPhonLAFi54

Why Tesla Succeeded in China But Amazon Did Not

** meer over Tom Zhu:

https://en.pingwest.com/a/11140
Exclusive: Musk finds new Tesla CEO to sleep in Gigafactories for him

posted on December 8, 2022 3:10 am

BEIJING, Dec. 7 (PingWest) - Elon Musk has decided on the person to take the position as the CEO of Tesla Global, according to trusted sources who spoke to PingWest. Tom Xiaotong Zhu, currently President of Tesla China and a Global Vice President, will likely move on to lead the electric vehicle and clean energy giant.

[....]
The answer is becoming clear: Zhu is the most likely, if not the only, candidate.

In terms of career background, Zhu had no experience in artificial intelligence, computer science, or the automotive industry prior to joining Tesla.

Born in the heavily industrialized northeastern city of Shenyang, Liaoning Province of China, Zhu joined Tesla China in April 2014, taking on the expansion efforts of the company's Supercharging project. Graduated from Auckland University of Technology in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in information technology, Zhu also holds an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Prior to joining Tesla, Zhu was involved in the founding of a local consulting firm focusing on property development and engineering.

Zhu rose to Tesla China’s leadership on December 12, 2014, when former Global Vice President and President of Greater China Veronica Bixuan Wu left the company abruptly due to disappointing sales numbers. Tesla announced that Zhu would replace Wu to lead sales operations in China. In a February 2015 press interview, Zhu’s publicly displayed title was the China Country Manager for Tesla, a position that is not considered high-level internally.

In July 2019, nearly a year after Tesla signed the crucial investment agreement with local governments in Shanghai for a Gigafactory, Zhu was publicly identified as Tesla’s Global Vice President and President of Greater China. In October that year, the Shanghai Gigafactory officially began churning out vehicles, helping Tesla deliver the first domestically made Model 3 just two days before the new year.

Since then, Tesla has recorded remarkable growth in China. Financial statements showed that the company delivered 936,000 vehicles globally in 2021, of which 484,130 were made in the Shanghai plant, accounting for 51.7% of the total global deliveries. On August 15, 2022, Musk revealed that Tesla had just crossed the mark of 3 million vehicles made, of which the Shanghai plant produced a third. Xinhua News Agency reported that Gigafactory Shanghai delivered 100,291 vehicles in November this year alone, setting yet another new record for monthly deliveries. Within the first 11 months of 2022, cumulative deliveries from the Shanghai plant exceeded 650,000 units.