Elon Musk to be known as 'Technoking of Tesla'

Chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn to become the 'Master of Coin', regulatory filings show

Tesla's Elon Musk will maintain his CEO position and his latest title. Reuters

Tesla’s Elon Musk and his finance chief have added tongue-in-cheek titles while another one of the company’s top executives changes roles.

Mr Musk, the carmaker’s chief executive, is now also the “Technoking of Tesla”, and chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn has added the title “Master of Coin”, according to a regulatory filing. Both will maintain the positions of chief executive and chief financial officer.

In a separate filing on Monday, the company said Jerome Guillen, who has been president of automotive since September 2018, transitioned last week to president of Tesla heavy trucking. Mr Musk first showed a Semi’ prototype of an articulated lorry in December 2017 and said at that time Tesla would start production in 2019. It is now planning to start deliveries by the end of this year.

“As Tesla prepares to enter the critical heavy-trucks market for the first time, Mr Guillen will now leverage his extensive background in this industry to focus on and lead all aspects of the Tesla Semi programme, including the related charging and servicing networks,” the company said.

In the past year, Mr Guillen has sold around 82,000 shares and pocketed roughly $50 million of proceeds. The vast majority of those sales have happened in the past six months, including 30,000 shares sold so far in 2021. The sales have been made according to pre-arranged trading plans, regulatory filings show. They did not disclose his reason for selling.

Tesla used to have a chief technology officer in co-founder JB Straubel, but he left the company in 2019. Mr Kirkhorn’s “Master of Coin” title may be a reference to the company’s purchase of Bitcoin disclosed last month.

Shares in the company fell 0.6 per cent before the start of regular trading in New York on Monday. The stock closed at $693.73 on Friday.