"He's burning out deputies fast": FT has learned of the exodus of employees from Musk's companies

Key employees are leaving Elon Musk's companies one by one, reported the Financial Times, which spoke to more than a dozen sources. Many attribute the decision to overload and burnout, frustration with the billionaire's strategy, mass layoffs and his political activism. The turnover is noticeable both in the "traditionally stable" Tesla and in new projects like xAI, while Musk's "fixation" on fighting ChatGPT is creating additional pressure, the newspaper said.

Musk's empire is experiencing a large-scale exodus of personnel, writes the FT. Thus, resignations followed in the U.S. sales department of Tesla, the public relations department, as well as the company's director of information technology left his post.

Some resignations are publicly known: for example, in April 2024, top manager Vineet Mehta, who had worked at Tesla for 18 years and supervised projects in the field of batteries, left the company. Many leave on a positive note - after many years of work, to launch their own projects or take a break in their careers, writes the FT. But more and more employees are leaving for negative reasons - because of overload, unstable priorities and political activity Musk, said the newspaper's interlocutors.

Musk, Tesla and xAI declined to comment to the newspaper.

Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, simultaneously running five companies - from SpaceX to Tesla - with more than 140,000 employees, notes the FT. But his working style doesn't suit everyone.

"The only consistency in Elon's world is how quickly he burns out his deputies. Even the board of directors joke: there's regular time and then there's "Tesla time." It's a 24/7 campaign-style work rhythm. It is not suitable for everyone," noted one of the billionaire's advisors.

xAI General Counsel Robert Keel ended his 16-month tenure in early August by posting an AI-generated video of a lawyer in a suit screaming while simultaneously throwing coal into a meltdown. "I love my two little ones and I see them too infrequently," he wrote. And xAI CFO Mike Liberatore lasted three months before moving on to Musk's chief rival Sam Altman at OpenAI. "102 days - 7 days a week in the office; over 120 hours a week; I like to work hard," the FT quoted Liberatore as saying, citing his LinkedIn post.

Close associates note that tensions over Musk's management style have intensified since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, which has shaken up the established order in Silicon Valley, says the Financial Times. Its sources also attribute the growing pressure to Musk's rivalry with Altman, with whom Musk once founded OpenAI and then parted ways, the FT says.

"Elon is having a ChatGPT backlash and spending every spare minute trying to knock Sam out of the market," said one recently departed top executive.

Amid a sharp drop in sales in the second quarter of this year - which many attribute to Musk alienating a liberal portion of customers - Omid Ashfar, a close associate of the billionaire known as his "fireman" and "executioner," was fired in June. He headed Tesla's sales and operations in North America. Soon after him, his deputy Troy Jones, who had worked there for 15 years, left the company.

"Elon's behavior is affecting morale, retention and recruitment. He has gone from being a man sympathized with by people of many different views to a figure supported only by a certain part of society," the newspaper's interlocutor said.

Other interviewees pointed to tensions over Musk's support for Donald Trump and his sympathies for the far-right in the U.S. and Europe. They said some employees were terrified to talk to families about Musk's polarizing views, from the topic of transgender rights to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

"I love Tesla and the time I spent there. But no one I know can abstract politics from it. Who wants to put up with it anyway? I get a call at least once a week. My advice is this: if your inner moral compass tells you it's time to leave, that feeling won't go away," the newspaper quoted another recent quitter as saying.

Traditionally, Tesla has been considered the most stable element of Musk's empire. However, many executives left the company after 14,000 jobs were cut in April 2024, writes the FT. An additional factor in the departures was that Musk redirected investment from new electric vehicle and battery projects, which employees considered key to the mission of reducing global emissions, to robotics, AI and unmanned cabs.

In June 2025, Milan Kovacs, head of the Optimus humanoid robot program, left the company. In September, he was followed by Ashish Kumar, head of the Optimus AI team, who moved to Meta.

Also among those leaving the company are Daniel Ho, who oversaw the Model 2 (NV-91) low-cost electric car program and moved to Waymo; head of powertrain and energy Drew Baglino; head of charging stations Rebecca Tinucci (left for Uber), as well as managers responsible for the Model Y and Cybertruck launches and IT director Nagesh Saldi.

At artificial intelligence startup xAI, which was founded two years ago and merged with social network X in March, the turnover is even higher, with the CFO and general counsel leaving their posts a week apart after a short period on the job, the FT reports.

Also, X CEO Linda Iaccarino resigned in July 2024 after the social network's takeover by startup xAI. She was annoyed by Musk's one-man decisions and his criticism of advertising revenue figures, the FT previously wrote.

A month later, Igor Babushkin, co-founder and chief engineer of xAI, left the company. They were followed by the head of communications and a number of engineers and product managers responsible for the integration of X and xAI. Some specialists were poached by competitors: Uday Ruddarraju and Michael Dalton joined OpenAI.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor