Former Tesla executive Andrew Baglino is looking to pocket some cash wealth on his way out the electric vehicle-maker’s door. Baglino, who resigned last week as the company’s senior vice president for energy engineering and powertrain, sold 1.14 million of his shares in Tesla on Thursday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That comes out to $181.5 million worth of Tesla stock.
The nature of the sale was described in the filing as a “stock option exercise.” Baglino previously sold 10,500 Tesla shares for $1.85 million on April 1, and another 10,500 for $2.14 million on February 29 of this year, according to the filing.
Baglino, who had been at the company for almost two decades, was part of Tesla’s main leadership team. He announced his departure last week, saying that he “made the difficult decision to move on from Tesla after 18 years” and that he was “thankful to have worked with and learned from the countless incredibly talented people at Tesla over the years.”
Rohan Patel, Tesla’s vice president of public policy and business development, also announced he was leaving the company in an X post that same day.
The resignations came amid Tesla’s sweeping layoffs, which resulted in the termination of at least 14,000 workers, or 10% of its 140,000-person global headcount. Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote in a memo to staff that it was “extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.”
Musk now oversees people previously led by Baglino, including the leaders of charging infrastructure and the 4680 battery project, The Information reports. He’s also now in charge of sales across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The automaker has faced a bumpy start to 2024, punctuated by first-quarter earnings that revealed a 9% year-over-year drop in revenues. Tesla blamed its less-than-ideal performance on “numerous challenges,” including conflict in the Red Sea, an arson attack at its Gigafactory in Berlin, high production costs, and softening consumer demand for EVs.
Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s chief financial officer, told investors following the report that its headcount reduction is projected to generate more than $1 billion in annual savings.
Tesla stock started to make its long-awaited comeback this week after — repeatedly — bottoming out at new 52-week lows earlier this month. The stock is up about 22% this week, but still down 31% so far this year.
-William Gavin contributed to this article.