Tesla loses manufacturing director who oversaw Cybertruck ramp

Another key Tesla employee has announced his departure this week, marking the latest in recent staff restructuring at the electric vehicle (EV) giant.

Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas Director of Manufacturing Engineering Renjie Zhu announced his departure in a LinkedIn post on Monday, after working with the company for five years in Texas and in China. Zhu has been in the current position since January 2023, overseeing the launch and production ramp of the Cybertruck since then.

“After triumphing the epic launch of Cybertruck program and ramping the volume production line to the steady 1K/W throughput orbit for the past 16 months in GFTX, also 7 weeks after the 5th Tesla-versary, my adventure with this great company has come to an end,” wrote Zhu. “It has been great honour and pleasure working with those most talented yet super diligent colleagues, as well as all of our amazing vendor partners, either back in Shanghai or here in Austin.”

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Prior to working at Giga Texas, Zhu was the Manufacturing Director at Gigafactory China from February 2021 to December 2022, running the manufacturing operations of the Model 3 and Model Y. He started at Giga Shanghai in March 2019 to build up the site’s body-in-white (BIW) manufacturing team. Zhu also alludes to beginning a “new journey” in the post “like a Falcon 9 back to the base to refuel and prepare for next launch,” though he didn’t disclose what his specific plans were.

“Every single day in the past 5 years we brought the world a little closer to the transition to sustainable energy, not just with our incredible products Model 3/Model Y/Cybertruck, but the innovative ways in which we built those high volume production lines with an unprecedentedly high efficiency and delivered the products to our customers with impeccable quality,” Zhu added in the post.

“Everyone actively involved in these cheerful accomplishments feels the fundamental changes we brought to the automobile manufacturing industry since the start of legendary GFSH in 2019. I’m so grateful that I had the chance of playing a big part in it with y’all!”

The news comes following multiple rounds of layoffs, including some to entire departments like the advertising and Supercharging teams. Interestingly, Tesla re-hired one former Supercharging executive on Monday, the company’s Director of Charging in North America, Max de Zegher.

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