Tesla's Engineering Chief, Doug Field, Departs Company for Good

(Bloomberg) -- Doug Field, Tesla’s engineering chief, has left the company after being on an extended leave of absence.

He had been with the electric-car maker for almost five years, a Tesla spokesman said by email. There was no immediate word on a possible successor. Field didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Field was a senior vice president and one of just four top executives named in Tesla’s proxy. Last year, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tasked the former Apple executive with managing both engineering and production, and Field made headlines in March with an email to workers that urged them to “prove a bunch of haters wrong” by boosting Model 3 output.

But by April, Musk had taken direct control of manufacturing and in May, the company said Field was on a leave to spend time with his family. On Monday, Tesla announced that it had made over 5,000 Model 3 sedans in the last week of the second quarter to meet Musk’s oft-delayed goal.

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