Tesla names new chief accounting officer

Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s current corporate comptroller, is taking over as the electric car maker’s new chief accounting officer Thursday and is reporting to recently named chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn.

Taneja, 41, has more than two decades of accounting experience, having worked with multinational companies in technology, finance, retail and telecommunications during his career. As corporate controller, he has closely collaborated with previous CFO Deepak Ahuja and Kirkhorn on Tesla’s quarterly earnings, U.S. and international controllership, and closely collaborated with the financial planning and analysis functions.

Taneja joined Tesla in 2017 from SolarCity, a solar energy company that Tesla acquired in 2016, where he originally served as vice president and later corporate controller and led the successful integration of both companies’ accounting teams. At SolarCity, his responsibilities in addition to controllership included mergers integration billing and collections, direct and indirect taxation in addition to directly liaising with the financial planning and analysis functions and investor relations.

Mark Kauzlarich/Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bl

Taneja started his career with Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, originally at PwC India and later relocating to PwC US, spending nearly 17 years in the firm’s assurance practice. There, he developed a broad base of technical experience dealing with complex issues for mid-cap and large-cap clients, including numerous Silicon Valley companies. He graduated with honors from Delhi University in India and is both a certified public and chartered accountant.

Taneja won praise from several of his colleagues. “I am always impressed with Vaibhav’s leadership, vision and resilience in dealing with scale, complexity and change,” said Abhi Maheshwari, head of finance at Logitech. “Vaibhav has broad experience serving several multinational clients at PwC, and taking on several expanded responsibilities at Tesla (formerly SolarCity), including controller for both the companies which makes him an excellent fit for this role.”

“I’ve seen first-hand how incredibly talented Vaibhav is,” said Justin McAnear, CFO of 10x Genomics and former vice president of finance at Tesla. “Vaibhav has been a consistent leader on the finance team, and he is extremely well-respected by his colleagues across the company. His extensive background and knowledge of the field are a perfect fit for this position, and I couldn’t be more excited for him.”

The move comes amid a period of turmoil for the Palo Alto, California-based company. Last September, the former chief accounting officer, Dave Morton, left Tesla, along with the head of human resources (see Tesla erupts in chaos after chief accounting officer leaves, Elon Musk tokes up). CEO Elon Musk had announced on Twitter last August that he had secured enough funding to take the company private, then quickly reversed course and was forced to settle fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as he also got into hot water for smoking marijuana during a radio interview. In January, CFO Deepak Ahuja announced plans to retire and other high-level executives have also departed, including a string of general counsels. The company also announced plans earlier this year to close most of its its showrooms and only sell cars online, then reversed course and instead raised prices on its vehicles. On top of that, the Trump administration announced plans this week in its budget to end the tax credit for electric vehicles.

Last year, the tax credit began to phase out for many of Tesla’s electric car models after it sold more than 200,000 vehicles, crossing a threshold to trigger a phase-out under IRS rules (see Tesla buyers hear clock ticking as $7,500 tax credit phases out). Tesla addressed the problem in a regulatory filing with the SEC. “In addition, the federal tax credit for the purchase of a qualified electric vehicle in the U.S. was reduced to $3,750 for any Tesla vehicle delivered during the first or second quarter of 2019, and will be further reduced to $1,875 for each Tesla vehicle delivered in the third or fourth quarter of 2019 and to $0 for each Tesla vehicle delivered thereafter. … In the long run, we do not expect a meaningful impact to our sales in the U.S., as we believe that each of our vehicle models offers a compelling proposition even without incentives. Globally, we are also working to, and in some cases have already begun to, increase the value proposition and affordability of our offerings to customers and offer other financing arrangements over time. For example, we intend to introduce leasing options for Model 3.”