August 9, 2023: On Monday, Tesla’s chief financial officer, Zach Kirkhorn, stepped down effective Friday, the automaker announced in a regulatory filing. Tesla’s chief analysis officer Vaibhav Taneja was set the new CFO and will hold both parts together.

Shares of Tesla were trading down nearly 4% on the news.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filing stated that Kirkhorn will stay with Tesla through the end of the year to assist in the transition. Kirkhorn retains performed as CFO since March 2019 and has worked for Tesla since 2010.

“As I shift my commitments to support this transition, I want to thank the talented, passionate, and hard-working employees at Tesla, who have accomplished things many considered impossible,” Kirkhorn wrote on LinkedIn.

Kirkhorn’s departure draws the second CFO replacement at Tesla in just over four years. When prior CFO Deepak Ahuja left Tesla in 2019, shares dipped as much as 4.5%.

Vaibhav Taneja, Kirkhorn’s replacement and Tesla’s former chief accounting officer, has been with the automaker since 2017.

He worked for SolarCity before entering Tesla because of the automaker’s $2.6 billion acquisition of the solar installer. Before that, Taneja was used at PwC for about 17 years. PwC is Tesla’s auditor.