On Thursday, 15 December, Tesla announced via Twitter that Giga Texas had surpassed its capacity climb target of 3,000 Model Y per week. A picture of hundreds of factory workers posing for a celebration at the plant was also posted in the announcement.
Notably, many Chinese faces with fluorescent safety vests stood out on the left-hand side of the picture. With arms lifted and exuberant faces, they looked more enthusiastic than the others.
These employees, as PingWest learned, are not local workers but a group of engineers that were airdropped from Gigafactory Shanghai to help Tom Zhu Xiaotong, the president of Tesla Greater China, support Giga Texas in achieving its capacity boost goal.
In the report on 7 December, PingWest revealed (read Exclusive: Musk finds new Tesla CEO to sleep in Gigafactories for him) that Tom Zhu had spent most of the second half of 2022 in the US helping Elon Musk "oversee productions" and handle some global businesses by commuting between Telsa's Fremont Factory and Gigafactory Nevada.
After quickly solving production issues due to the temporary shutdown of Gigafactory Shanghai in March and April after a wave of Coronavirus outbreaks, Zhu has once again been recognized by the company for his ability to manage a factory.
Bloomberg also reported that in order to achieve his goal of accelerating capacity, Zhu indicated Tesla China sent a team of engineers from Gigafactory Shanghai to work on-site in its US facilities. These engineers would be stationed at Fremont Factory and Giga Texas, which is located in Austin, Texas.
PingWest broke the story last week that Tom Zhu, who Musk highly regards in terms of enhancing production capacity, optimizing factory management, and building workplace culture, may succeed Elon Musk as the CEO of Tesla.
Elon Musk has frequently lauded his Chinese employees for their attentiveness and effectiveness. In July, Zhu was promoted to oversee Tesla's business in the whole of Asia-Pacific (Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore) due to his remarkable accomplishments in capturing car production and delivery in China.
It's important to note that Zhu seemed to be in that picture. During his tenure at Tesla China, he is renowned for adopting an incredibly low-key style. He seldom gave interviews with international media, avoided private office in favor of working among colleagues in an open area, and rented standard rooms for less than 5,000 RMB per month, which is not common among C-level personnel.
Even in the US, Zhu still maintained his iconic demeanor. In the picture, he chose not to stand out in the center position. Instead, he dons the same fluorescent-colored safety vest and a Tesla logo cap with his coworkers.
This occurrence in which Tesla's Giga Texas met capacity requirements is a rarely good instance of an "American factory" story. (The documentary "American Factory" is about the Chinese business Fuyao Glass, which established a facility in the United States but struggled to integrate its Chinese and American workers, leading to a significant managerial and cultural clash within the factory.)
Giga Texas mainly produces Model 3 and Model Y, with the latter's expanded capacity being one of the plant's primary objectives. As Tesla's Cybertruck enters production, Giga Texas will then serve as the country's main supplier.
Tesla recently celebrated the first delivery of the heavy-duty electric vehicle, the Tesla Semi. News of Musk's intention to "refinance" the syndicated loans used in the Twitter takeover deal surfaced last week. The Wall Street Journal then revealed that Musk has just this week alone sold $3.5 billion worth of Tesla stock.
The market value of Tesla has decreased this year as a result of the company's shares dropping from a high of $400 at the start of the year to $157 as of today.
Former Goldman Sachs investment banker and Bloomberg financial columnist Matt Levine hypothesized that Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter and subsequent assault on the blue bird's reputation might be a strategy to win over conservatives and open up a new consumer base for Tesla.
Original story was written in Chinese by Chen DU