Elon Musk has tapped a longtime Tesla Inc executive in China who oversaw construction of the Shanghai gigafactory to help run the electric automaker’s newest plant in Austin, Texas, people familiar with the matter said.
Tom Zhu (朱曉彤), who joined Tesla in 2014 to help build its Supercharger network and most recently has been heading the automaker’s Asia-Pacific operations, is in Austin this week and has brought some of his engineering team from China with him to assist in overseeing the ramp-up of Giga Texas — a US hub for the Model Y and future production of the Cybertruck — the people said.
It is not clear how long Zhu would be in Austin, or whether he would retain his Asia responsibilities, the people said.
Photo: AFP
The shift of Zhu to Austin comes as Tesla has been trying to increase output at its new Texas factory. The US electric vehicle pioneer originally planned to make Model Y sports utility vehicles using its new, larger 4680 lithium-ion cells at the plant, which Musk referred to as a “money furnace” earlier this year.
However, instead Tesla has pivoted to using older 2170 cells considering the new batteries were not ready for volume production.
It also comes as Musk has been spending time running Twitter Inc after acquiring the social media platform in late October. He is also chief executive of Space Exploration Technologies Inc and founded tunneling firm The Boring Co and brain-chip developer Neuralink Corp.
Musk’s US$44 billion acquisition of Twitter has sparked concerns about how he is dividing his time between his many companies and has also weighed on Tesla’s stock, which is down about 50 percent this year. Indeed, Musk himself as recently as last month admitted he has “too much work” on his plate.
Zhu for years was Tesla’s top executive in China, the electric vehicle maker’s biggest market outside of the US. Tesla’s factory in Shanghai makes Model 3 and Model Y vehicles for domestic consumption, and for export to other parts of Asia and Europe. It was recently upgraded to double the plant’s capacity to about 1 million vehicles a year and shipments last month soared to a record 100,291 vehicles.
Musk has also often expressed admiration for the Chinese work ethic, praising Tesla China employees for “burning the 3am oil” while saying that Americans are “trying to avoid going to work at all.”
The billionaire famously caused a stir earlier this year when he gave workers at Tesla globally an ultimatum: Return to the office or go and work elsewhere.
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