Vaibhav Taneja

The CFO of Tesla, Zachary Kirkhorn, has resigned from his position, which has surprised many people who believed Kirkhorn could have been a potential successor to CEO Elon Musk. Tesla did not give any specific reason behind Kikhorn’s departure.

Vaibhav Taneja, who is currently the Chief Accounting Officer (CAO) and joined Tesla through the SolarCity deal worth $2.6 billion in 2016, will now take on the role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO), in addition to his current position as CAO.

Taneja is a commerce graduate from the University of Delhi in India. He was initially the vice president (accounting operations) of SolarCity. Later, the role evolved into that of vice president (corporate controller). Taneja joined Tesla in February 2017 as the Assistant Corporate Controller, and his commitment and competence led to his elevation to the position of CAO in March 2019.

He is described as having played a major role in successfully integrating the accounting teams from both companies.

Before SolarCity, the 45-year-old’s professional experience includes tenure at the ‘Big Four’ firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. At the PwC, he served for a whopping 17 years up until March 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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