The head of Tesla’s Cybertruck program, Siddhant Awasthi, has announced that he’s leaving the company after more than eight years.
After starting at the company as an intern, Awasthi became the product lead of the Cybertruck in September 2022, just over a year before it went on sale, per his LinkedIn profile.
“This decision wasn’t easy, especially with so much exciting growth on the horizon,” he wrote in a Sunday post on the platform. “Tesla vehicles are incredibly complex systems that often don’t get the credit they deserve.”
It remains unclear whether Awasthi left of his own accord, was pushed out by the EV maker’s leadership, or if it was a mix of both. Spearheaded by CEO Elon Musk, Tesla has been moving to transition away from selling cars to focus on artificial intelligence and robotics.
Awasthi is only the latest in a long string of executives who have left Tesla this year as vehicle sales continue to plummet. Despite its soaring valuation, Tesla has struggled with nosediving revenues from its automotive business. The Cybertruck, in particular, has become a major sore point as it’s been plagued by technical issues and seen its sales circle the drain.
Even a small spike in interest by consumers trying to snatch a $7,500 federal tax credit, which expired on September 30, couldn’t stop sales from continuing to fall. The company has reported four consecutive declines in quarterly profit.
Most recently, Musk’s other businesses, including SpaceX and xAI, bought up thousands of the trucks in an apparent effort to boost Cybertruck sales.
The Cybertruck has also been a disappointment to buyers, having been recalled a whopping ten times since going on sale in late 2023. The truck, which Musk once described as “apocalypse-proof” and capable of driving on Mars, has suffered from glaring design problems, from massive stainless steel body panels that could fly off while driving to pieces of trim that could wedge themselves into the front of the footwell to pin down the accelerator pedal.
The truck’s specifications also disappointed, with a much lower-than-originally-advertised range and an eye-watering price of $60,000 and up, depending on trim level.
Musk once promised to sell anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 Cybertrucks a year. However, according to a recent recall filing, the company has only sold just over 63,000 since it went on sale just under two years ago.
As key executives continue to leave the firm — including Model Y program manager Emmanuel Lamacchia, who announced his departure on the same day as Awasthi — keeping Musk at the helm remains the company’s top priority.
Last week, shareholders voted overwhelmingly to offer the executive a $1 trillion compensation package that’ll be paid out if he can meet extremely ambitious goals like growing the company’s value to an astronomical $8.5 trillion from around $1.1 trillion today, or delivering one million humanoid robots over the next ten years.
More on the Cybertruck: Tesla’s “Apocalypse-Proof” Cybertruck Gets Recalled for the 10th Time Because Its Lightbars Are Falling Off