Tom Zhu promoted to Senior VP of Tesla

Tom Zhu has been steadily climbing through Tesla’s ranks. Credited with the success of Giga Shanghai and Tesla’s market position in China, Zhu has been working with the company since 2014. For a while now he has been rumored to be Elon Musk’s replacement, especially after his sudden move from China to the US and his subsequent appointment to oversee Tesla’s global production.

Tesla filed a regulatory update to its list of executives. Tom Zhu is now listed as the Senior Vice President of Tesla Automotive making him one of the top 4 executives within the company. In essence, this move made him officially Elon Musk’s deputy although his responsibilities were already vast.

Tom Zhu, who was born in China but now holds a passport from New Zealand, started working at Tesla in 2014. Before that, he was a project manager for a company founded by his MBA classmates at Duke University, which provided consulting services to Chinese contractors working on infrastructure projects in Africa.

Tesla had the best first quarter ever, with 422,875 electric cars sold. Out of those, 229,322 were made at Giga Shanghai. Model 3 and Model Y are the clear leaders with 412,180 units delivered to customers. Model X and Model S will remain niche luxury vehicles with 10,695 units delivered in the first three months of this year.

Zhu’s responsibilities now will be focused on Tesla’s automotive business. He won’t be involved in the development of autonomous driving or the robotics part of the company. His responsibilities before meant overlooking global production with the exception of Giga Berlin, this is likely to change now.

Tom Zhu has long been rumored to be the replacement for Elon Musk if he ever decided to step down from the CEO position. Elon Musk on the other hand, never made it a secret that he wasn’t perfect material for a CEO and he preferred to be an engineer. Many critics argue that he has taken too much onto his plate with the recent Twitter purchase and the appointment of Tom Zhu will be seen as an attempt to free up Elon Musk from some of his responsibilities.

Via