Tesla’s vice president of software engineering, David Lau, has told people at the company he is planning to quit, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

Lau has been with Tesla for nearly 13 years, and has held his current position since 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He has been one of the few executives to appear publicly to promote Tesla’s products, and even took to the stage alongside chief executive Elon Musk at an event in 2023.

Software role

Lau’s team is responsible for software in Tesla vehicles, cloud services and manufacturing systems.

His departure comes at a moment of difficulty for the electric carmaker, which is experiencing a significant backlash over Musk’s aggressive championing of right-wing causes and his close alliance with the US Trump administration.

The company last week posted a 13 percent drop in first-quarter deliveries, with analysts saying the decline was a direct result of Musk’s political engagements.

“This is our first look at the impact of recent brand damage – and it appears to be the primary driver behind this quarter’s delivery decline,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, on social media.

“These growth rates will likely deteriorate further this quarter,” he wrote.

Munster estimated 2025 deliveries would be 9 percent below the 1.79 million Tesla reported last year, a far cry from the 20 to 30 percent growth Musk promised last year.

Deutsche Bank similarly predicted a 5 percent sales drop this year.

Tesla is also grappling with an ageing line-up and increased pressure from rivals including BYD, which has unveiled competitive models at half the price of comparable Tesla vehicles and outpaced Tesla on global revenues.

Sales decline

Tesla has also seen a steep decline in sales in Europe, with February sales down 44 percent on average across 25 countries in the EU, the UK, Norway and Switzerland, according to Jato Dynamics figures.

US car shopping site Edmunds showed that Tesla owners have been trading in their vehicles at record levels since Musk joined Trump’s White House, finding that March represented “the highest ever share” it had seen for Tesla trade-ins toward new or used cars from dealerships selling other brands.

Demonstrations have been held outside Tesla dealerships and the Trump administration reportedly said internally that Musk would soon be moving on from his current role, although Musk denied his government position was ending prematurely.

Tesla’s shares closed 10 percent lower on Friday amidst widespread unease over US tariffs. The company’s shares are down 45 percent from a mid-December peak.