Tesla has lost two more vehicle program managers this week, with both the head of the Cybertruck program, Siddhant Awasthi, and program manager for Tesla’s Model Y Emmanuel Lamacchia announcing their exits.
The exit of two long-time Tesla leaders makes a clean sweep for the company’s vehicle program leadership in the last 12 months, and another in a long line of recent exits from a company which has been swinging from one extreme to the other for several years now.
Tesla’s head of the Cybertruck program, Siddhant Awasthi, was first this week to take to LinkedIn to announce that he had “made one of the hardest decisions” of his life in deciding to leave Tesla after a period of over 8 years, finishing as the program manager for both the Model 3 and Cybertruck.
“Eight years ago, when I started as an intern,” said Awasthi. “I never dreamed I’d one day have the opportunity to lead the Cybertruck program and bring it to reality.
“It’s been an absolute privilege filled with mostly high-intensity days—working alongside talented, driven, and truly rockstar colleagues across Tesla.”
Over Awasthi’s eight years at Tesla, his highlights include ramping up the Model 3, working on the Shanghai gigafactory, and delivering what he described as the “once-in-a-lifetime” Cybertruck – and “all before hitting 30”.
Next to take to LinkedIn was Emmanuel Lamacchia, the program manager for the Model Y, Tesla’s best-selling car.
Having spent just shy of eight years at Tesla, Lamacchia started as a staff technical program manager for new products like the Model 3 and Model Y, before being elevated to Model Y program manager.
“Leading the All-New Model Y launch was the highlight: converting all 4 factories across 3 continents in just 2 weeks,” said Lamacchia.
“Something that had never been done before in the auto industry.”
As was highlighted by Electrek in their reporting on the two exits, Tesla’s vehicle program leadership “has now been completely wiped out over the last year” after the exits last year of Daniel Ho and David Zhang.
Daniel Ho, who had worked for Tesla for just shy of 11 years, was reportedly let go last year as part of the company’s massive wave of layoffs. He had served in several model-specific program manager rolls before taking on the role as director of all vehicle programs.
Ho quickly landed at Waymo at around the time that David Zhang, Tesla’s second most senior vehicle program manager after Ho, belatedly announced on LinkedIn that he too had left Tesla after nearly nine years.
Tesla’s vehicle program leadership is not the only source of self-proclaimed “Ex-Tesla” members. Former senior staff manufacturing engineer for Australia, Chris Hatzivasiliou, also announced on LinkedIn over the weekend that he was leaving Tesla after nine years.
Two other exits earlier this year included Monika Jones, Tesla’s first manager of engineering programs in vehicle software and one of only a handful of female engineering managers, announced that she was leaving after nearly seven years.
The biggest and longest-serving name to leave Tesla in the past 12 months, though, would have to be Vineet Mehta, who worked at Tesla for 18 years and seven months, ending as the company’s head of battery architecture.
Mehta announced in April that he had ended his tenure at Tesla “of my own accord feeling the greatest degree of satisfaction with the work and the team.”
Another Tesla battery executive, Drew Baglino, head of battery and powertrain, left the company in April of 2024.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.
