Chaos at Tesla: Cybertruck and Model Y Leaders Exit on the Same Day
Tesla, long proud of its visionary image and supposedly unshakable leadership, lost two of its key figures in a single day. On 10 November, two men directly tied to the company’s most important models, the Cybertruck and the Model Y, announced their departures.
According to Reuters, Siddhant Awasthi, head of Cybertruck development and one of Tesla’s longest-serving engineers, left the company after nearly a decade. He started as an intern and later took charge of the brand’s most polarising project, the electric pickup. Just a few months before leaving, he had been promoted to lead the Model 3 programme. The same day brought another blow: Emmanuel Lamacchia, who oversaw Model Y product development and production, also resigned.
Both men had spent around eight years at Tesla. Under Awasthi’s watch, the Cybertruck finally reached production, though sales have fallen short of expectations. Lamacchia earned praise for his ability to reorganise factories across three continents in just two weeks to launch Model Y mass production, still Tesla’s most commercially successful model.
Tesla declined to comment on the departures. It remains unclear whether they were personal decisions or part of a wider restructuring. The Financial Times noted that the exits come as Elon Musk shifts focus towards artificial intelligence and “robotaxi” projects, while traditional car production appears to be taking a back seat.
The New York Post added that tension had been building within the Cybertruck team over production hurdles and customer feedback suggesting the project was more technically challenging than initially expected.
This isn’t the first time senior leaders have walked out of Tesla. A year ago, Dany Ho, the executive overseeing all vehicle programmes, including the Model 3, left the company, followed soon after by his deputy, David Zhang. Such turnover paints a picture of a corporate culture in constant motion — not always in predictable directions.
The shake-up comes only weeks after Tesla’s shareholder meeting, where 75 percent of voters approved Elon Musk’s record-breaking trillion-dollar compensation package. To earn it, Musk must grow Tesla’s market value from its current 1.4 trillion dollars to 8.5 trillion within ten years, a staggering target that makes every engineer’s and executive’s contribution critical.
Losing two pivotal figures in one day is more than a staffing issue. It signals a deeper shift inside Tesla. As the company moves toward robotics and AI-driven manufacturing, the traditional roles of product and development leaders may start to fade. Drama has always followed Tesla, but this time, the storm seems to be brewing right under its engineering wing.
