Where Former Tesla And SpaceX Ops Leaders Go Next
This piece isn’t about Elon Musk. Whatever your view on him, Tesla and SpaceX companies have become a gold pool for incredible talent afterwards.
If you’re hiring from Tesla and SpaceX, you’re often looking for people who (1) know how to industrialise high-volume hardware, (2) can build vertically integrated tools and supply chains, and (3) carry a distinct culture shaped inside Tesla and SpaceX....
And worked in an environment defined by high ownership, speed, constant pressure, and a strong risk appetite.
We wanted to find out where that talent goes next.
We mapped all former Tesla and SpaceX ops leaders, from Head to C-level, across industrial ops, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, procurement, purchasing, sourcing, quality, and programmes.
In total, we identified 214 leaders (141 at Tesla and 73 at SpaceX).
39 of them are Europeans – that represents 18% of the talent pool. We found that both Tesla and SpaceX brought in European automotive ops leaders to solve their physical manufacturing bottlenecks. They hired talent from BMW, Renault, Audi, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, and Rolls-Royce. We spoke with some of them to get their perspective and better understand how the skills they developed at Tesla and SpaceX carried over into their next companies.
This report was compiled in collaboration with the DeepTech Practice at The Big Search. If you’re interested in leadership and talent trends, looking to hire a DeepTech leader, or simply want to discuss the findings, feel free to reach out: elena@thebigsearch.com or Elena Obukhova.
Where former Tesla ops leaders go next
The top 20 is largely composed of DeepTech companies operating in (1) automotive & mobility and (2) energy & materials. But demand for these leaders goes well beyond those sectors. Defence tech companies like Anduril and autonomous delivery companies like Zipline are also actively hiring former Tesla operators.
Moves at Faraday Future, Lucid Motors, and Rivian are quite obvious. These EV rivals have long targeted Tesla’s manufacturing and supply chain leaders to replicate the Gigafactory model and Tesla’s production speed. Instead, we wanted to highlight Northvolt. Their co-founder, Peter Carlsson, was previously VP of Supply Chain at Tesla, and consequently, a few other leaders joined him:
Jamie Wolfe, former Director of Field Operations at Tesla, joined Northvolt as Director of Gigafactory Launch.
Mark Duchesne, former Director of Supply Chain Manufacturing and Assembly Project Engineering at Tesla, was CEO of Northvolt Ett.
David Mindnich, former Senior Director of Gigafactory Operations at Tesla, joined as COO at Cuberg, a Northvolt subsidiary.
Similarly, in the US, Redwood Materials, founded in 2017 by former Tesla CTO and co-founder JB Straubel, hired Kevin Kassekert, former Director of Infrastructure Development, and Chris Lister, former VP of Ops, as its COO and Chief Supply Chain Officer, respectively.
Hiring a former Tesla ops leader often means bringing in someone hands-on, resilient, and comfortable with pressure. Stephan Graminger, former Director of Body Manufacturing at Tesla in Fremont and responsible for the three body-in-white shops for the Model S, Model X and Model 3, told us how the Tesla culture shaped his work ethic and leadership approach.
Where former SpaceX ops leaders go next
Over the past two decades, SpaceX has seeded an ecosystem of New Space tech companies. The company has articulated a compelling and energising vision for the future of space. Many of the people who joined in the early years are now benefiting from the ecosystem that grew around it – think of Relativity Space or Firefly Aerospace.
Relativity Space has actually attracted the most SpaceX alumni, with nine of them. That means ~13% of all former SpaceX ops leaders have spent time at Relativity Space at some point in their after-careers. That’s the case of Zachary Dunn, former SVP of Production and Launch and current COO.
Some ops leaders also went on to launch their own space companies: Lee Rosen, former VP of Mission and Launch Operations, co-founded ThinkOrbital, and John Couluris, former Senior Director of Launch and Mission Operations, co-founded Reliable Robotics.
The novel energy sector is also attracting ex-SpaceX ops talent with experience building heavy, high-precision hardware. That’s the case of Proxima Fusion, which hired Barrington D’Arcy, former Senior Production Director, as Chief Manufacturing Officer to build a first-of-a-kind commercial fusion power plant in Europe.
We think that Tesla’s focus on robotaxis and Optimus, along with SpaceX’s IPO, could trigger further departures among Tesla’s and SpaceX’s long-tenured ops leaders in 2026.
For European DeepTech companies, this is a clear opportunity. That would only expand the pool of available European talent trained in two of the most demanding hardware companies in the world, where some would be open to working in Europe.
For some, the move would be professional.
For others, it would be personal.
We only covered roles from Head to C-level, but there is an even broader group of European talent who built their careers at Tesla and SpaceX as Managers and are now holding, or ready to step into, senior leadership roles. Worth watching!
Thank you, Stephan Graminger, Antoin Abou-Haydar, and Barrington D’Arcy, for contributing!
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I think it's great to see this extension of the paypal mafia if you will. Thanks for breaking it down so thoroughly.