Tesla’s longtime vice president of investor relations Martin Viecha announced Tuesday that he would leave the electric car company after seven years. His exit marks the third departure of a top executive from the challenged carmaker in less than two weeks.
Viecha followed Tesla senior vice president Drew Baglino, who resigned from the company last week. Baglino was one of only four named executive officers at Tesla and led engineering and technology development for the car’s batteries. Baglino had been with the company for 18 years and was well known to investors and analysts. In addition, Rohan Patel, the company’s vice president of public policy and business development, said he would part ways with Tesla.
Viecha made his comments at the end of a first-quarter earnings call many considered a crucial crossroads for the company after its worst quarter in four years. The call featured a more tempered presence from CEO Elon Musk, who had to reassure investors about Tesla’s future. Many of those investors would have worked closely with Viecha, who confirmed his departure in posts on X and LinkedIn.
“About a month ago, I spoke with Elon and [chief financial officer] Vaibhav [Taneja], to announce that I’m going to be retiring from the world of investor relations and moving on,” Viecha said in his post. “Working for Tesla for the past ~7 years has been the greatest privilege of my professional life.”
Viecha said he is leaving to “take a break and spend a lot of time with my family.”
While Tesla’s earnings call was encouraging to investors and sent the sagging stock rising more than 12% in after-hours trading, the exits have rattled some Tesla investors who have been critical of Musk. In particular, because Viecha had solid relationships with Tesla’s investors, including those who were perplexed by some of Musk’s behavior.
Speaking on CNBC, Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives said Tesla needed an “adult in the room” and Musk rose to the occasion today. However, Ross Gerber cautioned that Ives and others shouldn’t overweight Musk’s performance on the call with other signals from the company, including the executives’ exits.
“Dan, you’re discounting the end of the call with Martin resigning,” said Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management. “You and I have been working with Martin for a long time and he is the glue between management and shareholders and investors.”
Yet another executive leaving the company, especially during such a delicate time in its history, could indicate a pattern, according to Gerber. Musk “continues to lose seasoned top executives during this really important transition and I find that to be concerning,” said Gerber.
He noted that he agrees with the vision Musk outlined, however, but hopes to see a stronger alignment between the talk from Musk about his vision and the reality at the carmaker.
“The monkey in the room is that there’s no demand for the vehicles, even if they flew,” said Gerber.