Tesla CFO Steps Down, Musk Comments, Tesla Semi Insights

Hey everybody Rob Mayward here welcome back to Tesla daily today We are of course gonna be talking about the news that Zach her corn is going to be stepping down as Tesla's CFO I'll share my thoughts on that and then we do also have an interesting update from Pepsi on their experience so far with the Tesla semi and A few other items as well quickly looking at the stock not too bad of a day I don't think all things considered Tesla down about 1% to $251.45 while the NASDAQ was up six tens of a percent So a little bit of a recovery throughout the day following Tesla's 8k disclosure this morning about Zach Kirkhorn So let's take a look at that.

大家好，我是Rob Mayward，欢迎回到《特斯拉日报》。今天我们当然要谈谈扎克·柯恩将辞去特斯拉的首席财务官职位的消息。我会分享一下我的想法，此外百事还有一些有趣的关于他们与特斯拉半挂车的经验更新。再快速看一下股票情况，总体来说还算不错。特斯拉的股价下跌了约1%，至251.45美元，而纳斯达克指数上涨了0.6%。所以在特斯拉今天早上公布的关于扎克·柯恩的8K文件披露后，一天中股价稍有回升。让我们来看看具体内容。

Tesla in the filing saying that as of August 4th, Mr. Kirkhorn stepped down after a 13 year tenure with the company the last four years Of which he served as master of coin and chief financial officer Tesla thanks Mr. Kirkhorn for his significant contributions Mr. Kirkhorn will continue to serve Tesla through the end of the year to support a seamless transition Tesla has then also announced the appointment of Veyabar to Nia their current chief accounting officer to succeed Zach as CFO to Nia has been with Tesla since 2017 and was briefly with SolarCity immediately prior to that and he's been the chief accounting officer since 2019 although not listed in this announcement He is also one of the directors listed for Tesla in India Obviously the chief accounting role has been a little bit less public-facing But we'll look forward to hearing more from him in the future But looking at Zach he did post an update today on his LinkedIn profile said quote this morning Tesla announced that I've stepped down from my role as chief financial Officer succeeded by our chief accounting officer Veyabar to Nia being a part of this company as a special experience And I'm extremely proud of the work we've done together since I joined over 13 years ago as I shift my responsibilities to support this transition I want to thank the talented passionate and hard-working employees at Tesla who have accomplished things many thought not possible I also want to thank Elon for his leadership and optimism, which has inspired so many people end quote So for whatever reason this statement caused some additional drama today Particularly the beginning there where it says this morning Tesla announced that I've stepped down For some reason people seem to think that that implies that Zach didn't know that there was going to be an announcement But I'm pretty sure the CFO would know that there needs to be and is going to be an 8k for this So he certainly is not going to be surprised by that filing Maybe he didn't know the exact time that it was going out But he knew it would come out the wording to me just makes it clear that the announcement was today But the actual stepping down happened on Friday So in my opinion people reading way way too much into that people taking that and using that as evidence that Zach was Somehow pushed out and this was unexpected and while I will admit that this announcement was sudden and we'll talk more about that I don't take that statement as any sort of evidence that this stepping down was something that wasn't Zach's decision or something of that nature Which again a lot of the speculation has been of course It's possible but taking that from that statement seems pretty silly to me Then of course throughout the entire day you get all the speculation about why is an Elon commenting on this?

特斯拉在文件中表示，截至8月4日，柯克霍恩先生在公司的任期已经达到13年，其中最后4年担任首席财务官一职。特斯拉感谢柯克霍恩先生为公司作出的重要贡献。柯克霍恩先生将继续在本年度支持特斯拉，以实现无缝过渡。特斯拉随后宣布任命Veeyabari Nia为首席财务官，以接替柯克霍恩先生的职务。Nia自2017年加入特斯拉，并在此前短暂担任SolarCity公司的职务。他自2019年起担任首席会计官。尽管未在此公告中列出，但他也是特斯拉在印度的董事之一。显然，首席会计职务的公众形象略低调，但我们期待未来能听到他更多的声音。至于Zach，他在LinkedIn上今天发布了一条更新，称：“今天早上，特斯拉宣布我已经辞去首席财务官职务，由首席会计官Veeyabari Nia接替。”成为这家公司的一员是一种特别的经历。自从我在13年前加入以来，我对我们共同完成的工作感到非常骄傲。在我转交责任支持过渡期间，我想感谢特斯拉充满才华、热情和努力工作的员工们，他们完成了许多人认为不可能的事情。我也要感谢埃隆的领导和乐观主义，这激励了如此多的人。”因此，由于某种原因，这份声明在今天引发了一些额外的争议，尤其是在开始部分，其中提到"今天早上特斯拉宣布我辞去职务"。由于某种原因，有些人似乎认为这意味着Zach不知道会有一个公告。但我相当确定首席财务官会知道需要发布一份8K文件。因此，他绝对不会对此文件感到惊讶。也许他不知道具体发布的时间，但他知道会发布。对我来说，这句话只是表明公告是今天发布的，而实际辞职是在周五发生的。在我看来，那些把这个陈述解读成Zach被推出并且这是个意外情况的人读太多了，虽然我承认这个公告出乎意料，我们将会谈论更多相关情况。但我不认为这句陈述证明辞职并不是Zach自己的决定或类似的事情，当然有可能，但根据这个陈述得出这样的结论对我来说似乎相当愚蠢。当然，整天以来，大家对为什么埃隆没有对此事发表评论进行了各种猜测。

He hasn't said anything at all must be a bad look must have been a huge disagreement Well, if people would be a little bit more patient Elon this afternoon has now said quote I would like to thank Zach Kirkhorn for his many contributions to Tesla over the course of 13 often difficult years Much appreciated and best wishes for the next stage of his career and quote So there we have both Zach and Elon paying respects to each other. It seems amicable enough at least as amicable as it ever is in this scenario That should also help diminish any concerns about Zach leaving because of some numbers being misstated or some error or some fraud That's been made by Tesla that was a silly train of thought from the very beginning because in the announcement Tesla says that he's going to stay on to serve during the transition period Which if this was a repercussion of one of those types of things obviously they would not keep him on They would cut ties immediately and if there was something like that going on They would also not put the chief accounting officer then in that position So I think we can put any of those types of concerns to rest.

他完全没有说过任何话，肯定不好看，肯定是发生了很大的争执。好吧，如果人们能稍微有点耐心，埃隆今天下午说了这样一段话：“我想感谢扎克·柯克霍恩在特斯拉13年来的众多贡献，这些年来充满了困难。真的非常感激，并对他未来事业的祝愿。”所以我们看到了扎克和埃隆互相表达敬意的情景。至少在这种情况下，他们之间关系似乎还算友好，至少比往常那种情况友好。这也应该有助于减少人们对扎克离职的担忧，以免因为有些数字被错误陈述或有些错误或欺诈的行为而离职。从一开始就产生这种荒谬的想法就是错误的，因为特斯拉在公告中表示他将继续在过渡期内服务。如果这是上述这些情况的后果，显然他们不会留他在岗，他们会立即中断关系。如果真的存在类似的情况，他们也不会把首席财务官放到这个位置上。所以我认为我们可以消除这些担忧。

And then we are still left with the suddenness of this. Especially following the Q2 earnings call not that long ago. Why not just announce a transition plan at that point in time versus waiting a few weeks and then throwing out a random 8k about it? That does seem a little bit more sudden, a little bit less planned. So I think there is some merit to that sort of a discussion. but unfortunately we can't really go too far with it because we just don't have any information. All anyone can do is speculate as to what may be possible reasons for that, if that is even the case. So unless we get more information, unfortunately, I just don't think there is more clarity for us to gain from that discussion.

接着我们还是要面对这个突然性。尤其是在不久前的第二季度收益电话之后。为什么不在那个时候就宣布一个过渡计划，而是等几个星期后才抛出一个随机的8k文件呢？这似乎有点更突然，更没有计划。所以我认为这种讨论有一定的价值。但不幸的是我们不能太过深入，因为我们没有任何信息。任何人都只能推测可能的原因，如果真的存在的话。所以除非我们得到更多信息，不幸的是，我认为我们无法从这个讨论中获得更多的清晰度。

So who knows what the reasons are? Whenever a CFO leaves, it causes some concern about why they aren't sticking around. Is there some financial thing on the horizon that they're trying to get out ahead of? Do they not believe in the stock? Do they not want to continue to stay and watch those stock gains? Appreciate continue to earn options, things like that, and sure all of those things are valid concerns and could be possible reasons. But there are plenty of other reasons outside of something like that to the point of ultimately I think just adding some uncertainty because of those possibilities.

那么，有谁知道是什么原因呢？每当首席财务官离职时，都会引发一些关于他们为什么没有留下来的担忧。是有一些即将发生的财务问题让他们希望提前离开吗？是他们不相信股票吗？他们不想继续留下来观察股票的涨幅吗？确保继续获得期权收益等等，这些都是合理的担忧，可能是可能的原因。但除了这些可能性之外，还有很多其他原因，最终导致了一些不确定性。

But as a reminder, we've seen executives exit from Tesla over the years and it has not been a good predictor of where the business or the stock goes. JB Strouble obviously a good example of that and he has said that it was just the right time for him to move on to a different project. And said it was one of the hardest decisions. He's ever had to make. We've seen Tesla's former president of automotive drone Guillain leave, come back, leave again. We've seen that same sort of turnover in the CFO position with Deepakahouja. He left. He was replaced by Jason Wheeler who somehow I think everyone just forgot about because I haven't seen him as a part of the conversation at all today. But he was only the CFO for a year and a half and he left literally right before the Model 3 started ramping. Which I guess the concern was somewhat mitigated by Deepak then actually returning to the CFO position. He stayed on until 2019 stepping down again and was replaced by Zach. But his stepping down was not a harbinger of failure or lack of success going forward for the business as we know. If you had taken those as indicators of such, it would have obviously been a very grave error.

然而需要提醒的是，多年来我们看到过特斯拉高管的离职，但这并不能很好地预测企业或股票的走势。JB Strouble显然就是一个很好的例子，他表示这正是他转向其他项目的正确时机，并且说这是他有史以来最难的决定之一。我们看到特斯拉前总裁汽车无人机Guillain离职、回归，再次离职。我们也见证了财务总监职位的相同变动，Deepakahouja离职后由Jason Wheeler取代，但似乎大家都忘记了他，因为今天的讨论中没有看到他的身影。不过他只担任了一年半的财务总监，而且他恰好在Model 3开始加速推广之前离职。我猜这种担忧在Deepak回归担任CFO后在一定程度上得到了缓解。他一直任职到2019年再次辞职，由Zach接替他的职位。但我们知道，他的辞职并不意味着企业未来的失败或成功缺乏，如果你将这些视为这样的指标，显然会犯下非常严重的错误。

And by the way a couple of things for that Jason Wheeler departure. There was less notice from the announcement to his full departure. Then what we're getting here was Zach. Although you could debate that the full departure has happened already and that transition period maybe is just in name only. It's possible. We may not know for sure. But then going back to Deepak and his second departure, the stock was down more that day than it was today and obviously that led to Zach. So hopefully all of that is valuable context when we get to the actual departure.

顺便提一件事，关于Jason Wheeler离职的两件事。从公告到他完全离职的时间很短。现在我们所说的不过是Zach接任他的位置。当然，也可以争论说他已经完全离职，过渡期只是名义上的。这种可能性是存在的，我们可能无法确定。但是回到Deepak的第二次离职，当天股价下跌比今天更多，显然这导致了Zach的上任。所以希望在实际离职事件到来时，所有这些有价值的背景知识都能帮助我们理解。

I'm very disappointed about it. I've been a big fan of Zach. I think it's very easy to be a fan of a CFO that has overseen this tremendous period of time for Tesla where they have gone from, you know, not really profitable at all to massively profitable today. We've seen massive expansion in margins. We've seen massive expansion in the share price. It's easy to like a CFO during that period. But for me it definitely goes beyond just the business performance. I think Zach has brought a real steadiness to Tesla and has done so in a way that although has contrasted with Elon, certainly has not conflicted with him or the kind of frenzied culture that Tesla has. So that to me is a really nice fit for what Tesla needs at the CFO position. I also think he's done a very good job communicating with investors. And yeah, that includes Wall Street. I don't care as much about that, as you know. But I think a great job with retail investors as well. And I think he's always done a good job in addressing things that are a little bit more short-term in nature. But framing them in terms of the context of how they fit into Tesla's long-term vision. So none of that is to say that someone else can't come in and do an equally great job. But it is sad to see Zach go. I'm very much appreciative of his long career at Tesla and wishing him the best wherever he goes from here.

我对此非常失望。我一直是Zach的忠实粉丝。我觉得作为一位首席财务官，监督着特斯拉这个时期的巨大进展，从一家几乎没有盈利的公司到今天的巨大盈利，是非常容易成为他的粉丝的。我们见证了利润率的巨大扩张，股价的巨大增长。在这段时期里，喜欢一个首席财务官很容易。但对我来说，这绝不仅仅是业务表现的问题。我认为Zach给特斯拉带来了真正的稳定，并且以一种与埃隆形成对比的方式这样做，但肯定没有与他或特斯拉充满狂热的公司文化相冲突。因此，对我来说，他非常适合特斯拉首席财务官的职位。我还认为他在与投资者的沟通方面做得非常好。是的，其中也包括华尔街。但正如你所知，我对此并不是很在意。我认为他在与散户投资者的沟通方面也做得非常好。我认为他总是在处理那些短期性问题时做得很好，同时将它们与特斯拉的长期愿景融为一体。这并不是说其他人不能来做同样出色的工作。但看到Zach离开确实令人难过。我非常感激他在特斯拉的漫长职业生涯，并祝愿他在未来的道路上一切顺利。

Alright, let's move on to the Tesla Semi. We've got a great new video with Pepsi discussing their experience with the Tesla Semi so far as a part of the run-on-less event. Which takes a closer look at the progress of electrification in the trucking industry. I'll put a link to the video in the description. It's only about 10 minutes long. I would highly recommend watching it, but we will go through the highlights from some of the Pepsi executives and drivers as well.

好的，让我们继续讨论特斯拉半挂卡车。作为run-on-less活动的一部分，我们有一个与百事可乐的视频，讨论了他们迄今为止对特斯拉半挂卡车的体验。该视频更深入地研究了卡车行业的电气化进展。我会在描述中放上视频链接。视频只有大约10分钟长。我强烈推荐观看，但我们也会从一些百事可乐高管和司机的亮点中进行讨论。

So first thing, these trucks aren't doing real work. They are delivering beverages for Pepsi 24-7, this was from their Sacramento facility. They say they've got 21... Tesla Semi's there and that this facility's energy needs presumably including vehicle charging are all filled by solar So a really cool early look into what the future should be

首先，这些卡车并非在做真正的工作。它们在全天候为百事可乐运送饮料，这些卡车来自他们位于萨克拉门托的设施。据他们称，那里有21辆特斯拉半挂车，并且该设施的能源需求，包括车辆充电，都由太阳能满足。因此，这是一个非常酷的早期展示，展示了未来应该是什么样子。

Pepsi says that most of the deliveries They're running with the semis right now are for their quote-unquote delivery routes Which is generally them delivering beverage products to either distribution centers or stores in the area and they say that these are usually under 100 miles And there are multiple stops along the way and that's what they're using most of the trucks for right now So that demonstrates a really good use case for a lower range version

百事公司表示，现在他们正在使用卡车运送大部分货物，主要是进行所谓的配送路线。通常情况下，他们将饮料产品送到该地区的分销中心或商店，这些路程通常不超过100英里。途中有多个停靠点，这就是他们目前大多数卡车的主要用途。因此，这就很好地证明了对低续航版本的需求。

But they do also say that three of the semis they use right now are for long hauls and that these go from 250 to 450 miles and they're able to do those on a single charge with the full trailer and remember these are beverages Some people said with Pepsi Frito-Lay that oh, they're just sawing chips and it doesn't make a difference But Pepsi here saying yep 450 miles with a full trailer

但是他们也说，他们现在使用的三辆半挂车主要用于长途运输，行驶距离在250到450英里之间，并且他们能够在单次充电的情况下完成带有满载货车的运输。需要记住的是，这些半挂车运输的是饮料。有些人可能认为百事食品公司只是在运输薯片，并且这对电动半挂车没有影响，但百事在此表明，他们能够带满载货车行驶450英里。

They also talk about charging a couple times throughout the video they mentioned again the 750 kilowatt chargers Still not sure what's going on with that because they do say they are averaging at less than 1.7 kilowatt hours per mile So the pack is probably somewhere in the 800 kilowatt hour range and a couple times they talk about going from 5 or 10% state of charge up to 95% state of charge in 20 or 30 minutes This was kind of an off-handed comment So I'm not putting much stock in that one but later on they said 0 to 80% in 45 minutes That was reiterated on the website as well If that's an 800 kilowatt hour pack you would need to charge at 850 kilowatts on average Not even at peak to get that 0 to 80% on that size pack in that amount of time So we continue to see that it continues to not add up to me

他们还在视频中多次谈到了充电的问题。他们再次提到了750千瓦的充电器。不过我还不确定具体情况，因为他们说他们的平均每英里能耗不到1.7千瓦小时。所以电池容量可能在800千瓦小时左右。他们也多次提到从5%或10%的充电状态上升到95%的充电状态只需要20或30分钟。这只是一个随意的评论，所以我不太相信这一点。但后来他们又说0%到80%的充电只需要45分钟。网站上也有这样的说明。如果电池容量是800千瓦小时，你需要平均充电850千瓦，即使不是峰值状态，才能在这么短的时间内从0到80%充满。所以对我来说，这仍然让我觉得有些疑惑。

But moving on from that there's a nice quote from their director of fleet operations about the project in general He said quote this is a very big deal This is going to revolutionize how the trucking industry goes to market in the future and PepsiCo is on the forefront of it Very very important that we get it right and quote the drivers also had a lot of comments to share They were universally positive. So this wasn't necessarily a pros and cons feedback thing But maybe more of what you like about the vehicle. They said it was comfortable Their body doesn't hurt as much after a day of driving. It drives great great visibility Hasn't an awesome turn radius Someone said that it's better than her car and really simple easy to understand how to use She specifically mentioned that she was a little bit afraid of the the iPhone when it first came out But thinks that the Tesla semi is much less intimidating to drive than a normal class 8 truck So great to hear some of those comments And then one of the executives also mentioned that the region breaking has been kind of a game changer They said that on the trip back from Donner's Pass It's negative energy or net zero energy because of region breaking down from that elevation Obviously that means it takes about double the energy to get up But not having to burn energy on the way back is still a win So again link for that is in the description

从那之后，他们的车队运营总监还就这个项目发表了一段很有意思的评论。他说道：“这是一件很大的事情，这将彻底改变卡车行业的营销方式，百事可乐公司是革新的先驱。非常重要的是，我们要把它做对。”至于司机们，他们也发表了很多评论，所有人的反馈都是积极的。因此，这并不是评价优缺点的反馈，而更像是对这辆车的喜好。他们表示它很舒适，开一天车后身体不会那么疼痛。驾驶很棒，视野很好，转弯半径很小。有人说比她的车好，而且非常简单易懂。她特别提到，当iPhone刚刚问世时她有点害怕，但是她认为特斯拉半挂车比普通的8级卡车更容易驾驶，不那么让人感到威胁。听到这些评论真是太好了。还有一位高管也提到了区域制动的变革。他们表示，在从唐纳斯山道返回的行程中，由于区域制动，净能量为负或零。虽然上山需要双倍能量，但回程不需要消耗能量，仍然是一个胜利。因此，请查看描述中的链接。

Next we'll move on to a quick update on the cyber truck There was a video posted by randomness 2646 on tiktok that showed a handful of cyber trucks in gigataxis And we do actually see the front trunk open not the highest resolution video But we can't at least get a little bit of a sense of scale It'll look a little bit different in person But this does validate what we had previously seen with those F-150 wrapped cyber trucks early on and the front trunk does look a little bit Smaller than maybe early expectations or the 4-F-150 lightning for comparison But still very sizable and it does look like it'll have that nice sort of parallel loading Versus the need to have to drop things into more of a bucket shaped front trunk

接下来我们简要更新一下Cybertruck。在TikTok上，用户randomness 2646发布了一个视频，展示了一些Cybertruck在超级工厂里。虽然视频的分辨率不是很高，但我们可以至少对其尺寸有一点点了解。实际上，实物可能会与此有些不同，但这证实了我们之前在那些包裹了F-150 Cybertruck的车辆上看到的情况，前行李仓看起来比早期的预期要小一些，或者与4-F-150闪电相比较。但仍然非常大，并且看起来会有一种不错的平行装载方式，而不需要将物品放入一个类似桶形的前行李仓中。

Next a quick update on Giga Berlin It looks like Tesla has installed a number of version 4 superchargers there thanks to Esther cockamans on Twitter for sharing some photos of that So it looks like that rollout is continuing to pick up pace

接下来是有关德国超级工厂“Giga Berlin”的最新进展。根据Twitter上的Esther Cockamans分享的一些照片，特斯拉已经在那里安装了一些第四版超级充电桩。因此，可以看出这个设备的部署正在不断加快。

And then the last few items CATL has announced that they are going to be launching a product on August 16th. So it could be relevant to Tesla. We'll keep an eye out for that.

然后最后几个项目，CATL宣布他们将在8月16日推出一款产品。所以这可能与特斯拉有关。我们会密切关注。

Then Lucid and Rivian earnings are today and tomorrow respectively. So Lucid has reported a hundred fifty one million dollars of revenue for the second quarter that was below expectations by about 20 million. Lucid did say that they are on track to produce their goal of 10,000 vehicles this year. But they've only sold about twenty eight hundred in the first half of the year. So I don't know if they're on track to sell that many or nearly that many which is one of many big concerns right now for Lucid.

卢西德和瑞福安的财报将分别在今天和明天发布。因此，卢西德报告称第二季度收入为1.51亿美元，低于预期约两千万美元。卢西德表示他们正如期望地生产今年的目标——1万辆车。但他们在上半年仅销售了约2800辆。所以我不知道他们是否能够实现销售那么多或接近那么多，这是卢西德目前面临的众多重大问题之一。

The other being their financial position. So they say they ended the second quarter with approximately six point two five billion dollars in total liquidity. They say that's expected to fund the company into 2025 which it's a year and a half from now. It's not too far and they may not hit their targets. They have not hit their targets much so far. Their net loss for the quarter was seven hundred and sixty four million dollars. They lost seven hundred dollars in cash from operations and free cash flow once you had capital expenditures was negative nine hundred million dollars. So at a similar rate. That's about seven quarters left of cash and their gross margins have not shown signs of improving. They also just got prices and are introducing some lower price versions. Tough to see any path for them outside of continuing to raise money. Which maybe they can continue to do with Saudi Arabia.

另一个原因是他们的财务状况。所以他们称他们在第二季度结束时大约还有62.5亿美元的流动性。他们表示这将为公司提供资金支持，直到2025年，即一年半后。这个时间并不太长，他们可能无法达到目标。到目前为止，他们没有太多达到目标。他们在这个季度的净亏损为7.64亿美元。他们从运营活动和自由现金流中损失了7亿美元，一旦加上资本支出，则为负9亿美元。以相似的速度来看，他们大约还有7个季度的现金，而且他们的毛利率没有显示出改善的迹象。他们还刚刚降低了价格，并推出了一些更低价的版本。很难看到他们除了不断筹集资金之外的其他出路。也许他们可以继续与沙特阿拉伯合作筹集资金。

And then lastly for today Neuralink announced that they have raised a series d round of two hundred eighty million dollars ahead of their first human trial. So congratulations to Neuralink for that. And that'll wrap it up for today as always. Thank you for listening. Make sure you're subscribed and signed up for notifications. And also find me on the X at Tesla podcast. And we'll see you tomorrow for the Tuesday August 8th episode of Tesla daily. Thank you.

在今天的消息中，Neuralink宣布他们在首次人类试验之前筹集了2.8亿美元的D轮融资。祝贺Neuralink取得这一成就。今天的节目就到此为止了，感谢你们的收听。请确保已经订阅并开启了通知。同时也可以在特斯拉播客节目中找到我。我们明天再见，到8月8日星期二的特斯拉日报节目。感谢你的支持。