Tesla Vice President Raj Jegannathan, who spent 13 years at the Elon Musk led company, announced on Monday that he is leaving. He shared the news in a short post on LinkedIn, describing his time at the electric carmaker as “a journey of continuous evolution.”
Before his exit, Jegannathan was overseeing information technology, AI infrastructure, business applications and information security. Last year, he was also asked to take charge of Tesla’s sales operations after the then head of North America sales, Troy Jones, was removed.
“The journey at Tesla has been one of continuous evolution,” Jegannathan wrote in his LinkedIn post.
Who is Raj Jegannathan?
Jegannathan joined Tesla in 2012 as a technical expert in cloud security and IT. Over the years, he rose through the ranks to become Vice President of IT, AI Infrastructure, Applications and Information Security. He later moved on to senior roles at global tech giants, serving as a Senior Product Manager for database optimisation tools at Oracle and working with Microsoft’s Azure team on AI-driven insights, according to TESMAG.
Raj Jegannathan holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He began his professional journey at Infosys in India, where he led software development teams working on enterprise resource planning platforms.
Exit amid sales and brand challenges
His departure comes at a difficult time for Tesla. The company’s car sales have been slowing, and its brand image has taken a hit due to an ageing range of electric vehicles and criticism of CEO Elon Musk over his political views, his role in the Trump administration and his support for far-right figures and parties globally, according to a report by CNBC.
In 2025, Tesla reported a 3% drop in revenue, marking the first decline in its history. The company is now under pressure to revive EV sales and deliver on long-standing promises around fully driverless technology that does not require a human driver, the report added.
Tesla is also facing a wider slowdown in demand for electric vehicles in the US. At the same time, Musk has been shifting focus towards artificial intelligence, self-driving systems and humanoid robots. Last year, Tesla lost its position as the world’s largest EV seller to China’s BYD, a Bloomberg report said.
Series of senior leadership exits at Tesla
Jegannathan is the latest senior executive to leave Tesla, which has seen several high-profile exits as vehicle deliveries have fallen for two years in a row.
Musk’s close associate Omead Afshar left last year after overseeing sales and manufacturing in North America. In 2025, Milan Kovac, who led engineering for Tesla’s Optimus robot and David Lau, who headed software for more than a decade, also exited the company, the report mentioned.