Tesla's North American Sales Executive Troy Jones Departs Amidst Sales Struggles

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal on July 15, Troy Jones, Tesla's North American sales executive, has left the company. This marks another high-level change within Tesla, where Jones served for 15 years as the Vice President of Sales, Service, and Delivery for the company's largest market. Tesla and Troy Jones did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Following the news, Tesla's stock price dropped by over 1%. This executive departure comes at a time when Tesla is facing sales challenges, with weak demand in both the European and North American markets. The company is experiencing a sales slump due to delayed model updates and competition from rivals offering more cost-effective alternatives. Tesla reported that its global sales for the second quarter of this year reached 384,122 vehicles, a 13% decrease from 443,956 units in the same period last year, marking a second consecutive quarter of decline. Additionally, data from S&P Global Mobility shows that Tesla's registrations in Canada during the first half of this year were slightly over 9,000, a staggering 67% drop compared to over 26,000 registrations in the same period of 2024. Notably, since early last year, Tesla has seen a wave of executive departures, including key figures such as CEO Elon Musk's close aide Omead Afshar, Chief Battery Engineer Drew Baglino, and Global Public Policy Head Rohan Patel. Moreover, Milan Kovac, head of the Tesla humanoid robot Optimus team, announced his departure in June, and Vineet Mehta, an executive in the battery department, left in May. In early July, reports indicated that after Afshar's departure, Musk personally took over Tesla's sales operations in Europe and the U.S., while Zhu Xiaotong, based in China, continues to oversee Tesla's sales in Asia and has taken over global manufacturing operations. These high-level exits, along with changes in the legal and supply chain leadership, have raised concerns about the internal stability of Tesla. Currently, Tesla is working to address the sales decline and accelerate its transition to robotics and autonomous driving technologies.