Tesla Names Tom Zhu as Senior Vice President for Automotive Operations

Tesla named Tom Zhu, who led the construction and operations of Tesla’s Shanghai factory, as senior vice president for automotive operations, a regulatory filing on April 6 showed. This makes him one of the four executive officers at Tesla, along with Musk, Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn and powertrain head Andrew Baglino.

Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014, and served in various operational roles before being appointed as Vice President, Greater China, where he led the construction and operations of Gigafactory Shanghai. Zhu holds a bachelor’s degree of commerce in information technology from the Auckland University of Technology and an M.B.A. from Duke University.

On March 2, Zhu appeared at Tesla Investor Day to introduce Tesla’s factories and production capacity. He also emphasized the achievements of the Shanghai factory in construction and production.

SEE ALSO: Tom Zhu, Head of Tesla Greater China, Appears on Investor Day

Prior to this, Zhu had already resigned as the legal representative of several Tesla subsidiaries in China, such as Tesla’s motor sales and service company in Guangzhou, Zhengzhou and Yinchuan, and Roadster Automobile Sales and Service (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

Tesla also nominated co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel to the board. As noted by Tesla, JB Straubel is set to succeed outgoing Board member Hiro Mizuno as a Class I director.

According to the delivery data released by Tesla, in 2022, Tesla produced a total of 1.3696 million cars and delivered a total of 1.3139 million cars globally. This is the first time that Tesla’s global production and delivery volume has exceeded one million vehicles. In the first quarter of 2023, Tesla produced over 440,000 vehicles and delivered over 422,000 vehicles.