Musk’s Top Salesman Exits in Another Huge Blow for Tesla
Tesla sales have declined for five consecutive months in Europe, falling 45.2 percent compared the same period last year.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Elon Musk has reportedly fired his top Tesla salesman and confidante as the billionaire attempts to revive his struggling company’s fortunes.
Omead Afshar, Tesla’s vice president of North American and European operations, has been let go, people familiar with the matter told Forbes. His exit comes amid slumping sales driven by rising competition and public backlash over Musk’s deeply unpopular work in the Trump administration.
Omead Afshar joined Tesla in 2017 and boasted about spending “nearly every single day” with Musk while the company was grappling with production issues in 2018.
Afshar—whom The Wall Street Journal has described as Musk’s “fixer”—was promoted to the powerful position last October, but the regions under his watch have been especially troubled.
In Europe, Tesla sales have declined for five consecutive months, falling 45.2 percent compared the same period last year, France24 reported Wednesday, despite growth in the EV market.
Tesla shares are down more than 13 percent since the start of the year.
Christian Marquardt/Getty Images
It appears the executive was not anticipating his departure from the company—which comes just days before Tesla is expected to report global delivery results for the second quarter—when he hailed Tesla’s robotaxi launch in an X post on Monday.
“Thank you, Elon, for pushing us all!” wrote Afshar, who joined Tesla in 2017, but later jumped over to Musk’s other businesses, SpaceX and X, before returning Tesla in 2024.
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He boasted about spending “nearly every single day” with Musk while Tesla was grappling with production in 2018.
Absolutely historic day for Tesla.
— Omead Afshar (@omead) June 23, 2025
This has been *years* of hard work and focus by so many people within the company.
Thank you, Elon, for pushing us all! https://t.co/2FPKU77ZOo
Musk’s popularity cratered after he joined President Donald Trump’s administration in January and became the face of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—and Tesla’s brand and stock have suffered alongside him.
The Tesla CEO’s explosive spat with Trump in May at the end of his White House tenure appears to have been sparked in part by Musk’s opposition to the GOP’s “big, beautiful” bill, which guts Biden-era EV tax incentives.
Afshar’s exit comes comes on the heels of another high level exit: Milan Kovac, the head of engineering for the Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program, resigned in early June, insisting it had “absolutely nothing to do with anything else” beyond wanting to spend more time with family.
People familiar with the matter said Tesla’s director of human resources for North America, Jenna Ferrua, also left the company, the Journal reported.
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