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Text/Lee Hyun-hwan
Source/city boundary (ID:ishijie2018)
On the evening of December 7, Pinwan released a report saying that Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk) has confirmed his successor as Tesla CEO: Tesla’s current global vice president and Greater China CEO Zhu Xiaotong (Tom Zhu).
The report mentioned that Zhu Xiaotong’s “CEO” position is a global position, but the scope of responsibilities may be limited to the automotive business, excluding autonomous driving and robotics projects.
So far, Tesla has not responded to this.
Successor rumors revive
The news that Musk is looking for a successor for Tesla is not groundless.
In the past half a month, this rumor has been rampant on public media platforms.
The news originated in November this year, Tesla director James Murdoch said that Musk had identified a potential successor to lead Tesla in the past few months. But Murdoch did not further name the potential successor.
In fact, the news came from a court debate on November 16, US time. A Tesla shareholder sued Musk, claiming that his salary package was too high and had reached an unreasonable level. At the same time, Musk himself did not work full-time at Tesla. The acquired social media company Twitter has distracted Musk.
Both Musk and Murdoch attended the court debate at the time. When asked by the judge, “Will Musk leave Tesla? Will he step down as Tesla CEO?”, Murdoch said that Musk did not propose However, in the communication with the board of directors, Musk once recommended a CEO candidate.
According to previous reports, Murdoch had answered the same question in a trial a few months ago. At that time, Murdoch’s testimony showed that Musk did not mention any successor information.
In fact, apart from Murdoch’s statement in court, there is no other clear news or indication that Musk will step down as Tesla CEO. Only in the face of doubts about the sky-high salary, Musk responded: “Frankly, I don’t want to be the CEO of any company.”
At the Tesla shareholder meeting in August this year, Musk once emphasized, “I will stay until the day when I can’t play my value.” Musk said that Tesla has an ultra-luxury lineup team. “Even if one day I am kidnapped by aliens and taken to Mars, Tesla will operate very well.”
But Tesla’s board has considered the option. Antonio Gracias, a former member of Tesla’s board of directors, once mentioned that the board had considered making Musk the chief product officer instead of the CEO, but the first difficulty encountered after the idea was put forward was: there is no such thing as yet. Anyone can replace Musk.
Who is Zhu Xiaotong?
It was also from Murdoch’s trial speech that the global media began to “search” for a new CEO candidate for Tesla.
According to CNBC reports, Tesla currently has 27 executives worldwide who report directly to Musk. The vast majority of those executives are based in Tesla’s core offices in Fremont and Austin. Among the 27 executives, only three are not local American executives: Lothar Thomas, the global vice president and managing director in Germany, in charge of automation; in the Netherlands, in charge of Tesla’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business Joe Ward, the global vice president of Tesla; the last one is Zhu Xiaotong, president of Tesla Greater China.
In the eyes of foreign media, Zhu Xiaotong has played an indispensable role in leading Tesla to expand China’s production capacity and market, including the exponential growth of Tesla’s China car sales and the construction of the Shanghai Super Factory.
As Tesla’s first super factory outside the United States, the Shanghai Gigafactory currently has an annual production capacity of 750,000 vehicles, making it Tesla’s super factory with the highest production capacity in the world.
In order to replicate the success of the Shanghai Super Factory to the United States, Musk also selected 200 engineers from Shanghai in November this year to go to the United States to guide the production of the Fremont factory.
In 2021, the Shanghai Gigafactory will deliver more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries. In the last quarter’s earnings conference call, Musk revealed that Tesla has produced more than 3 million vehicles, of which the Shanghai plant alone contributed one-third of its production capacity and produced 1 million vehicles.
At the same time, China has also become Tesla’s second largest market in the world. Tesla has delivered more than 650,000 vehicles in the Chinese market this year, accounting for 23.9% of the company’s total revenue, second only to the United States.
Pinwan mentioned in the article that this series of performance is enough to make Musk satisfied with Zhu Xiaotong’s work. He has publicly praised the production efficiency of Shanghai Super Factory and the diligence of Chinese employees more than once; After the business in the Asia-Pacific region, Zhu Xiaotong is very likely to “go a step further” and take over Tesla’s global production, delivery and sales business.
This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-12-08/doc-imqmmthc7483595.shtml
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