Tesla’s head of HR is on leave, third high-level exec to go ‘on leave’ this year

We’ve learned this week that Tesla’s head of HR is on leave for unknown reasons.

She becomes the third high-level exec to go ‘on leave’ since the beginning of the year.

Bloomberg reported yesterday:

Tesla created the new ‘Chief People Officer’ position at the company when it hired Toledano to manage its growing workforce.

A Tesla spokesperson sent us the following statement:

“Gaby previously asked to go on leave to spend time with her family, and we support that. The HR team has been sharing her responsibilities.”

The automaker leadership shakeup hit its human resource department earlier in the year when Mark Lipscomb, Tesla’s VP of human resources and second most senior HR exec after Tesla’s Arnnon Geshuri both left.

Toledano is now the third high-ranking Tesla exec to go on leave this year and if the two previous examples are any indication, she might not return.

Tesla’s SVP of engineering Doug Field didn’t return to the automaker after a leave earlier this year and we have since learned that he went to Apple.

Last month, Ganesh Srivats, who has been one of Tesla’s top sales executives for the past 3 years, left the automaker after being on leave for an extended period of time in 2018.

There have been a lot of changes in leadership at Tesla lately. The company announced earlier this year that it is slashing its workforce by as much as 9% in a restructuring of the company as Tesla attempts to become profitable by the end of the year.

While many are leaving, Tesla is also still hiring.

After announcing a flurry of new executive hires from Apple, Amazon, and more earlier this year, they also announced a new head of Energy operations hired from Amazon and a new head of Tesla Europe coming from BMW a few weeks later.