Zach Kirkhorn | |
---|---|
Born | 1984or1985(age 39–40) [1] |
Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania Harvard University |
Occupation | Chief financial officer |
Known for | Tesla, Inc. |
Zach Kirkhorn (born 1984) is a financial executive working in the automotive manufacturing industry. He served as the chief financial officer of Tesla, Inc. from 2019 until he stepped down in August 2023. [2]
Kirkhorn grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. [3]
From 2002 to 2006, Kirkhorn studied both Economics at The Wharton School and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania as part of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. [3] In 2013, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School. [3]
During his studies in 2005, Kirkhorn joined Microsoft as a financial analyst intern. In 2006, he did another four-month internship at Microsoft as program manager intern. After graduating in 2006, Kirkhorn worked at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company as a business analyst. [3]
In 2010, Kirkhorn joined Tesla as a senior analyst in finance. [3] In December 2014, he became director of finance, and in December 2018 he was appointed as vice president of finance. On January 30, 2019, Kirkhorn was announced to replace Deepak Ahuja as Tesla's new CFO on the fourth-quarter Tesla earnings call. [4] In March 2021 he was given the title 'Master of Coin' within Tesla, a reference to the Game of Thrones title for a treasurer. [5]
Kirkhorn stepped down from his role as CFO of Tesla in August 2023. [2]
In April 2018, Kirkhorn married his partner Daniel Alexander Naughton, then a senior finance manager at OpenTable. [1] Having met at McKinsey in 2010, the couple own homes in Oakland, California and Austin, Texas. [6] [7]
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in space company SpaceX and automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X, and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world; as of July 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$221 billion.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.
Gary S. Gensler is an American government official and former Goldman Sachs investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Patrick Pichette is a Canadian business executive and venture capitalist who was the senior vice president and the chief financial officer of Google from 2008 until 2015. He then became a venture capital fund manager, and is a director for several companies and a foundation.
The Tesla Semi is a battery electric semi-trailer truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2022. The truck is powered by three motors, and is claimed by Tesla to have approximately three times the power of a typical diesel semi truck, a range of 500 miles (800 km), and operate at an energy use of less than two kilowatt-hours per mile (1.2 kW⋅h/km).
Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer and clean energy company founded in San Carlos, California in 2003 by American entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The company is named after Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla is the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturer, and, as of the end of 2021, Tesla's cumulative global vehicle sales totaled 2.3 million units.
Jérôme M. Guillen is a transport executive working in automotive manufacturing. He holds a Doctor of Engineering from the University of Michigan and has worked for Freightliner Trucks, Daimler AG and Tesla, Inc. Guillen previously studied in France at ENSTA Paris. Guillen worked at Tesla, Inc. for ten years between 2010 and 2021, including as President of Automotive, having previously led both the Tesla Model S and Tesla Semi manufacturing programmes.
Deepak Prabhu Ahuja is an Indian-American financial executive working in the life sciences industry who previously worked in the automotive manufacturing industry. He is best known for being the former CFO of Tesla.
Robyn M. Denholm is an Australian business executive. In November 2018, Denholm succeeded Elon Musk as chair of Tesla, Inc.
The Tesla Cybertruck is a battery electric pickup truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2023. Introduced as a concept vehicle in November 2019, it has a body design reminiscent of low-polygon modelling, consisting of flat stainless steel sheet panels.
TSLAQ is a loose, international collective of largely anonymous short-sellers, skeptics, and researchers who openly criticize Tesla, Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. The group primarily organizes on social media, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and on Reddit to coordinate efforts and share news, opinions, and analysis about the company and its stock. Edward Niedermeyer, in his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019), pinpoints the July 2018 doxxing of Twitter user Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller operating under the pseudonym Montana Skeptic, as the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ.
Hiromichi Mizuno is a financial executive who served as chief investment officer of the Japan Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the largest asset owner in the world, from January 2015 until March 2020. He is currently United Nations special envoy on innovative finance and sustainable investments.
Gigafactory Texas is an automotive manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas built by Tesla, Inc. Construction began in July 2020, limited production of Model Y began before the end of 2021, and initial deliveries of vehicles built at the factory took place at an opening party called “Cyber Rodeo” on April 7, 2022.
Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.
Business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 28, 2022. Musk stated he intended to buy Twitter to build X, an "everything app" he had been developing since 2018 to mimic the Chinese app WeChat. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech.
Shivon Alice Zilis is a Canadian technology executive and venture capitalist.
Ned Segal is an American business executive. He was the chief financial officer of Twitter from 2017 to 2022. He was fired, along with three other top executives, on October 27, 2022, following Elon Musk’s purchase of the company.
Linette Lopez is an American journalist who focuses on U.S. politics and economics, and writes columns for Business Insider. As a senior finance editor, she has investigated companies involved with public-facing controversies, and is most widely known for her coverage of Tesla, Inc. A regular contributor to Marketplace produced by American Public Media, Lopez teaches as an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has also been a frequent commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and Real Time with Bill Maher.
Jared John Birchall is an American business executive and a former banker. He is the chief executive officer of neurotechnology company Neuralink and the wealth manager of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk since 2016. As an adviser and right-hand man for Musk, Birchall holds executive or administrative positions in other endeavors of his including the Boring Company, Musk Foundation, xAI, and managing his family office.
Vaibhav Taneja is the chief financial officer of Tesla, Inc., serving since 2023. He is also the company's chief accounting officer and one of the directors of Tesla India Motors and Energy Private Limited. Taneja is a certified public accountant.