Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn steps down

Tesla’s chief financial officer, Zach Kirkhorn, stepped down from his position, effective Aug. 4, the automaker announced Monday morning in a regulatory filing. Tesla’s chief accounting officer Vaibhav Taneja was appointed as the new CFO and will hold both roles concurrently.

Shares of Tesla were trading down about 1% on the news.

Kirkhorn will stay on with Tesla through the end of the year to assist in the transition, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Kirkhorn had served as CFO since March 2019 and had worked for Tesla since 2010.

“As I shift my responsibilities to support this transition, I want to thank the talented, passionate, and hard-working employees at Tesla, who have accomplished things many thought not possible,” Kirkhorn wrote on LinkedIn.

Kirkhorn’s departure marks the second CFO replacement at Tesla in just over four years. When prior CFO Deepak Ahuja left Tesla in 2019, shares dipped as much as 4.5%.

Vaibhav Taneja, Kirkhorn’s replacement and Tesla’s former chief accounting officer, has been with the automaker since 2017. He worked for SolarCity before joining Tesla, by way of the automaker’s $2.6 billion acquisition of the solar installer. Before that, Taneja was employed at PwC for about 17 years. PwC is Tesla’s auditor.