Tesla head of manufacturing Omead Afshar fired by Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired Omead Afshar, the automaker’s vice president of manufacturing and operations, CNBC confirmed

Afshar's departure comes after year-over-year declines in car sales in Tesla's key

Afshar reported directly to Musk and led a team of more than a half dozen high-level employees, according to internal organizational charts viewed by CNBC

In this articleTSLA your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTElon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. , and Omead Afshar, left, leave an event at the site of the company's manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China, on Monday, Jan

Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesTesla CEO Elon Musk has fired Omead Afshar, the automaker's vice president of manufacturing and operations, CNBC has confirmed, ing declines in car sales in key this year

Afshar, who reported directly to Musk, led a team of more than a half dozen high-level employees, according to internal organizational charts viewed by CNBC

Forbes first reported that Afshar was dismissed by Musk

Bloomberg reported earlier that Afshar had left the company

Executives on Afshar's team included Troy Jones, who is Tesla's vice president of North American sales, and Joe Ward, vice president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region

Also on his team was Karen Steakley, who now leads development and policy for Tesla, and previously held the role of deputy director for legislative affairs for Texas Republican Gov

CNBC reached out to Afshar and to other Tesla executives as well as board members

They didn't immediately respond to requests for

Afshar was the subject of an internal investigation at Tesla in 2022, Bloomberg reported, which had focused on his orders of hard-to-get construction materials, including a special kind of glass for a secretive ject for Musk. ing that be, Afshar also worked for SpaceX, Musk's aerospace and defense contractor, but had returned to Tesla and was moted to the vice president role

Afshar's file on X still says he's at Tesla and this week he praised Musk ing the launch of the company's pilot Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, writing, "Thank you, Elon, for pushing us all. "Afshar's termination s the resignation of Milan Kovac, previously head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robotics gram, earlier this month

Kovac said in a post on X that he was leaving in order to spend more time with his family

Musk has thanked Kovac publicly for his work

Tesla new car sales in Europe fell for a fifth straight month in May, according to data published on Wednesday from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA, as customers pivot to European brands and cheaper Chinese electric vehicles

The company has faced brand and reputational damage in the past year, largely due to Musk's incendiary rhetoric and political activity

President Donald Trump to a second term and then led an initiative to slash federal agencies and their resources

Musk also formally endorsed and moted Germany's far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party