Tesla's CFO is leaving the company (TSLA)

pulse

February 22, 2017 10:42 PM

Tesla named Wheeler CFO in November of 2015. Wheeler spent 13 years at Google as its VP of Finance before going to Tesla.

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Tesla Chief Financial Officer Jason Wheeler is leaving the company, CEO Elon Musk announced during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

Deepak Ahuja, who served as CFO prior to Wheeler taking over, will return to Tesla as CFO. Wheeler will leave Tesla at the end of April.

Wheeler said on the call that he is stepping down to pursue public policy projects.

"I'm looking to scratch an itch that I had for many, many years now." Wheeler said. "I will go do something in the public sector, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable about leaving if we didn't have a really good plug-and-play solution in place for the company."

Tesla named Wheeler CFO in November of 2015. Wheeler spent 13 years at Google as its Vice President of Finance before going to Tesla.

Ahuja served as Tesla's CFO from August 2008 to November 2015 and was one of Tesla's longest-serving executives when he left. Tesla said Ahuja was retiring at the time of his departure. Since leaving Tesla, Ahuja has been a board director for cybersecurity firm FireEye, according to his LinkedIn.

Tesla reported a smaller-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter and beat expectations for revenue.

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