For years, Tesla (TSLA) has operated more like a Silicon Valley tech company than a traditional Detroit carmaker, moving fast and breaking things.
The strategy has worked, leading Tesla to a valuation greater than that of the Detroit Big 3 combined, despite the company selling a fraction of the vehicles the others do annually.
Like a typical Valley company, Tesla has spent billions to ensure its technology and artificial intelligence are state-of-the-art.
Related: Tesla's history of settling Autopilot claims before $243 million lawsuit
Recently, however, the company has succumbed to a Silicon Valley problem that automakers don't have to deal with as frequently: poaching.
Just last year, Tesla reached a conditional settlement in a lawsuit against EV rival Rivian over the latter's poaching talent to steal trade secrets.
But poaching talent isn't illegal, as long as that talent isn't also taking trade secrets along with them to the next company.
Now, Tesla seemingly has a problem retaining longtime executives in leadership positions.
Tesla loses North America director, a nine-year veteran, to AI company
This week, Piero Landolfi, director of service for the North American region, left Tesla after nearly nine years to join Nimble, an AI robotics and autonomous e-commerce technology company.
Landolfi said leaving Tesla was difficult because of “the first principle thinking and the getting stuff done mentality” at the company, Reuters reported, citing a LinkedIn post.
Tesla North America has bled a lot of talent this year after Troy Jones, Tesla's top sales executive in North America, also left the company in July after 15 months.
Related: US car buyers should expect great summer deals, but there's a catch
Tesla reportedly fired Omead Afshar, its head of North American and European operations, in June following a massive drop in European EV deliveries.
Afshar, who joined Tesla in 2017, was just promoted to the position in November. The Wall Street Journal described Afshar as one of Musk's closest confidants at the company.
Tesla brand loyalty drops under Elon Musk's political ambitions
Tesla brand loyalty peaked in June 2024, according to S&P Global Mobility data seen by Reuters, when 73% of Tesla-owning households looking to buy a new car purchased another Tesla.
This represented significant brand devotion, since among auto brands from the fourth quarter of 2021 through the third quarter of 2024, only Ford's quarterly loyalty rate exceeded 60%, and only once.
Yet more recent data, which tracks registration data across all 50 states, shows that Tesla's loyalty rate bottomed in March, with just 49.9% of Tesla owners looking for another.
That number ticked back up to 57.4% in May. Musk's last day at DOGE was May 30.
S&P analyst Tom Libby told Reuters that Tesla's decline from the unquestioned industry brand loyalty leader to industry average was “unprecedented.”
“I’ve never seen this rapid a decline in such a short period of time,” he said.
For the four years before July 2024, Tesla acquired, on average, five new households for every one it lost, well ahead of any rivals.
The next-closest competitor was Hyundai's luxury Genesis brand, which averaged 2.8 new households for every one it lost.
But since February 2025, Tesla has only gained fewer than two households for every one it lost to a competitor.
Related: Ford Motor CEO takes ‘radical approach' to major problem
