Tesla’s director of service for the North American market announced that he left the automaker after almost 9 years.
The talent exodus continues at Tesla.
Since a wave of mass layoffs last year, Tesla has been experiencing a talent exodus.
Here is just a short list of Tesla execs who left the company this year:
- David Imai: Director of Design; departed February 2025
- David Lau: VP of Software Engineering; departed April 2025
- Mark Westfall: Head of Mechanical Engineering (Tesla Energy); departed April 2025
- Prashant Menon: Regional Director (India); departed May 2025
- Vineet Mehta: Head of Battery Architecture; departed May 2025
- Omead Afshar: VP/Head of Sales and Manufacturing (North America and Europe); departed June 2025
- Milan Kovac: Head of Optimus Humanoid Robot Team; departed June 2025
- Jenna Ferrua: Director of HR; departed June 2025
- Troy Jones: VP of Sales, Service, and Delivery (North America); departed July 2025
- Pete Bannon: VP of Hardware Engineering (Chip Tech and Dojo Supercomputer); departed August 2025
Now, we need to add one more to the list: Piero Landolfi, Director of Service in North America.
Landolfi announced that he was leaving Tesla on LinkedIn yesterday:
After 8 3/4 years I have made the difficult decision to leave Tesla. It was hard because of the incredibly talented and passionate people that I had the privilege to work, sweat and laugh with as we were accelerating the world to sustainable energy, against all odds and in spite of what used to be the general beliefs about electric cars. It was hard because of the amazing products we build, the first principle thinking and the getting stuff done mentality that makes Tesla such an exciting place to work at. However, it is now time for my next adventure. This is the way.
The executive joined Tesla in 2016 to lead technical service operations, a time when the automaker was implementing “F1-inspired fast lanes” in its service operations.
He was later promoted to Director of Service for the North American market.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he has joined Nimble, a robotics company serving warehouses and e-commerce, as SVP of Operations. The company includes several former Tesla veterans in its leadership.
Electrek’s Take
The talent bleed continues. I want to emphasize that we are only reporting on the exec levels (C-level, VPs, and directors), but there are many more people leaving in key engineering and management positions.
I’m considering writing an article on those, as this talent exodus has been one of the main concerns about Tesla for a while.
For the longest time, Tesla’s ability to attract top talent has been its main advantage.
Looking at the comings and goings at Tesla over the last year, this is clearly not the case anymore.
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