Tesla’s top data executive Nagesh Saldi is leaving in blow to Elon Musk

Nagesh Saldi, Tesla's CIO since 2018, is resigning before the launch of a new robotaxi. His exit aligns with other recent departures at the company.

Tesla's Chief Information Officer Nagesh Saldi is leaving the company days before it’s set to unveil a new robotaxi, Bloomberg reported citing people in the know. Nagesh Saldi reported directly to Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and news of his departure was shared with employees this week, the report claimed.

Tesla's Chief Information Officer Nagesh Saldi will depart just before the unveiling of a robotaxi. His resignation follows a series of executive exits as the company shifts its focus toward AI and data center expansion.

The long-serving executive had been involved in the build-out of Tesla’s new data centers in Texas and New York and his resignation comes at a time when the company is bulking up its computing capacity to accelerate breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) to power autonomous driving.

Nagesh Saldi joined Tesla in 2012 from HP, according to his LinkedIn profile. He became the Tesla CIO in 2018, when the company was amping up the Model 3 sedan. Not only him, other executives have departed this year as the company has shifted its focus.

Senior Vice President Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel, its government affairs head, left in April. Tesla’s top human resources executive, Allie Arebalo, also exited.

Tesla only has three named executive officers: Elon Musk, Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja and Tom Zhu, senior vice president of automotive.