Tesla's new No 2 revved up Shanghai Gigafactory

Tom Zhu has delivered for Tesla in China, and now Elon Musk has moved him into the No 2 spot at the electric-vehicle maker.

Described as a hard worker who keeps a low profile, Zhu has been promoted to take direct oversight of the automaker's US assembly plants as well as sales operations in North America and Europe, according to Reuters.

Zhu, who was born in China but now holds a New Zealand passport, joined Tesla in 2014. He previously was a project manager at a company started by his MBA classmates at Duke University, advising Chinese contractors who were working on infrastructure projects in Africa.

According to Zhu's social media accounts, he earned a bachelor's degree from the Auckland University of Technology in 2004 and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

The Tesla internal posting showed that Zhu's title of vice-president for Greater China had not changed and that he also kept his responsibilities as Tesla's most senior executive for sales in the rest of Asia, as of Jan 3. The move makes Zhu the highest-profile executive at Tesla after CEO Musk.

Reuters reviewed the organizational chart that had been posted internally by Tesla and confirmed the change with two people who had seen it.

"Tesla teams led by Tom Zhu have the best world-class executions probably in the history of the world for large manufacturing companies," the Tesla Synopsis account posted on Twitter on Sunday.

"Tom Zhu is the Tim Cook of Tesla," said the Twitter account Big Tesla on Jan 2, comparing him with the Apple CEO.

Zhu and a team of people reporting to him were brought in by Tesla late last year to troubleshoot production issues in the US, fueling an expectation among colleagues then that he was being prepared for a larger role.

Global role

Zhu's appointment to a global role comes while Musk has been occupied by his acquisition of social media platform Twitter, and Tesla analysts and investors have urged action that would bolster the senior executive ranks and allow the multi-billionaire to focus on Tesla.

During Shanghai's lockdown for COVID-19, Zhu was among the first group of employees sleeping in the factory as they worked to keep it running, people who work with him have said.

The Shanghai Gigafactory was built in 10 months in 2019, and it was 65 percent less costly to build than the Model 3 production plant in the US, according to Forbes. A few years later, it became the largest EV production plant in the world.

When Tesla delivered 936,000 vehicles worldwide in 2021, more than half of the vehicles came from the Shanghai factory, it was reported.

Zhu is taking charge of Tesla's main production hubs while the company prepares the launch of Cybertruck and a revamped version of its Model 3 sedan.

"Zhu is a core leader at Tesla and a linchpin to its success, especially in China," Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst covering the tech industry at Wedbush Securities, was reported as saying by CNN.

Agencies contributed to this story.