Finance

A Tesla exec is leaving to be COO of Lyft

By Matthew DeBord
FILE PHOTO: An illuminated sign appears in a Lyft ride-hailing car in Los Angeles, California, U.S. September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: An illuminated sign appears in a Lyft ride-hailing car in Los Angeles Thomson Reuters
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  • John McNeill is leaving Tesla to join Lyft as COO, Bloomberg reported.
  • He was head of sales and service at Tesla.
  • The news broke as Tesla was conducting a Q4 earnings call.


Executive leadership changes are usually announced at the top of an earnings conference call, not in the middle of them.

But after Tesla reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter losses and while CEO Elon Musk was on a call with analysts, Musk announced thatJohn McNeill was leaving the company.

"McNeill was president of global sales and service at Tesla and an influential figure at the automaker," Bloomberg reported.

Musk said that he would be effectively taking over the position and that “there are no plans to search for a replacement.”

McNeill gained some serious attention in the industry when it was reported in 2017 that he would receive a $700,000 bonus if Tesla achieved its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3s per week, The Drive reported.

Tesla fell far short of that goal, so McNeill didn't have the cars he needed to sell.

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Matthew DeBord
Matthew is a Business Insider senior correspondent who covers transportation (and chess, guitars, home-audio equipment, cocktails, and sometimes classic rock). His focus is the global auto industry, including Tesla, a company he has chronicled since 2007. He also looks after Business Insider's annual Car of the Year award, announced every fall. He's written for The New York Times, Slate, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, and CBS Interactive. He's commented on the auto industry for a variety of media outlets, including Sirius XM, MSNBC, Radio France, KPCC, and KCRW.  DeBord won the 2018 Ken Purdy Award from the International Motor Press Association. He's taught at New York University's Stern School of Business and the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. His book "Return to Glory: The Story of Ford's Revival and Victory at the Toughest Race in the World" was published in 2017 by Atlantic Monthly Press and came out in paperback in June 2018. In the New York Times Book Review, Jonathan Kellerman called it a "page-turning synthesis of business book and adventure saga."
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