Tesla Inc. is losing key personnel as it races to bring the Model 3 — its most critical electric sedan yet — to market later this year.
CFO Jason Wheeler's impending departure, announced just 15 months after he joined Tesla from Google, will be the latest in a raft of largely under-the-radar exits.
Former executives, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, cited a range of reasons for their exits over the past year, including long hours in the rush to high-volume production, mission creep, and a tense culture that reflects their visionary but indefatigable CEO Elon Musk.
"Tesla looks like a company that is getting stretched to the limit," said Dave Sullivan, an analyst at industry researcher AutoPacific Inc. "The pressure of getting out the Model 3 is getting to everybody, from the people on the factory floor to the people at the top."
A Tesla spokesman in an e-mailed statement called attracting and retaining talent "one of our biggest assets" and said the company's attrition rate was below average among technology companies.
Long hours and job-hopping are routine at tech companies in Silicon Valley, and Palo Alto-based Tesla continues to make high-profile hires. Even so, analysts have flagged the departures as a risk to what will be Tesla's most challenging execution year. Musk plans to introduce the Model 3, is starting battery production at the Gigafactory and will integrate SolarCity, the recent acquisition that pushed Tesla's global workforce to roughly 30,000 people.
Like many companies, Tesla noted among risk factors in its just-filed annual report that it needs to attract and retain skilled workers. This year, however, it added a new phrase to the boilerplate, saying the efforts are needed "especially to support our expansion plans and ramp to high-volume manufacture of vehicles."
"Any time you're going through a big change it's important to have consistent management," Colin Langan, a UBS analyst who has a sell rating on the stock, said in an interview. "Jason Wheeler was a big hire and he's leaving, and there have been many other departures. If you're putting out aggressive targets and the people aren't there to meet them, it's a problem."
Bloomberg News compiled a list of more than two dozen management departures over the past year that include vice presidents of finance, communications, regulatory affairs, production, manufacturing, products and programs. Most recently Tesla has lost Mark Lipscomb, its VP of human resources, and Satish Jeyachandran, the director of hardware engineering.
Tesla is generally opaque about its leadership beyond Musk and Chief Technical Officer J.B. Straubel, with no list of executives or vice presidents on its website, its investor relations page or annual report.
Goldman Sachs this week downgraded Tesla to sell from neutral, with analyst David Tamberrino casting doubt on its ability to deliver the Model 3 on time. The Feb. 27 report contributed to the shares dropping about 11 percent from their 19-month closing high of $280.98 on Feb. 14. Of 23 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, eight have buy ratings on the shares, nine are neutral and six recommend selling.
Tesla's shares have jumped about 28 percent over the past year. Revenue surged 73 percent to more than $7 billion in 2016.
