The Delhi University graduate has become the automaker's second Indian-origin CFO at a time when the company is eyeing plans to manufacture in the country
Vaibhav Taneja, CFO, Tesla
Tesla has a new CFO. And this time again, he is of Indian origin.
Vaibhav Taneja, a graduate from Delhi University who spent 16 years at global consultancy firm PwC before moving to Tesla, was appointed as the automaker’s CFO on August 7. Deepak Ahuja, the Mumbai-born executive, had earlier served as Tesla’s CFO.
Taneja, a chartered accountant, has already served as Tesla’s chief accounting officer after joining the automaker in 2017. Taneja replaced Tesla veteran and a widely speculated successor to founder Elon Musk, Zachary Kirkhorn, who will stay on until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition. “This morning Tesla announced that I’ve stepped down from my role as chief financial officer, succeeded by our chief accounting officer, Vaibhav Taneja,” Kirkhorn said in a LinkedIn post. “Being a part of this company is a special experience and I’m extremely proud of the work we’ve done together since I joined over 13 years ago.”
Before joining Tesla, Taneja, a commerce graduate, had worked in finance and accounting roles at SolarCity Corporation, a US-based solar panel developer acquired by Tesla in 2016. Before that, the 45-year-old had a 16-year-stint at PwC in both the US and India, which included managing the audits of companies across telecom, entertainment, media, and financial services in India. In 2021, Taneja was also appointed as a director for Tesla's Indian arm, Tesla India Motors and Energy Private Limited.
“Right from the time he joined PwC, there was a sense of purpose in him,” Deepak Kapoor, former chairman of PwC India, tells Forbes India. Kapoor had hired Taneja for his first job as an assistant manager at PwC and remembers him as someone who “sticks out in your memory”. “Through the 40 years or so at the firm, you tend to categorise people in different brackets, and Vaibhav was always among the top stars, the three or four that stand out.”