The Kaipher Editorial Team 
A Tesla energy engineer has publicly resigned after eight years with the company, citing CEO Elon Musk’s leadership as the primary reason for his departure in a scathing LinkedIn post that quickly went viral across the industry. Giorgio Balestrieri, who led Tesla’s European energy trading algorithms and served as a staff algorithms engineer for the company’s Autobidder platform, announced his resignation on September 11 with unusually direct criticism of Musk’s leadership.
“The main reason I’m leaving is that I think Elon has dealt huge damage to Tesla’s mission (and to the health of democratic institutions in several countries),” Balestrieri wrote, adding that “Elon’s leadership and decision-making seem seriously compromised.”
Growing Executive Exodus Accelerates
Balestrieri’s departure represents the latest in a significant wave of high-level exits from Tesla over the past two years. The company has lost at least 10 executives in 2025 alone, including Troy Jones, vice president of sales for North America, Omead Afshar, a close advisor to Musk, and Milan Kovac, who led the Optimus humanoid robot program. Tesla has reduced its workforce by approximately 14% since late 2023, cutting from 140,473 employees to around 121,000, while leaked internal training recordings show the company acknowledging employee morale issues.
Critical Role in Tesla’s Energy Business
Balestrieri’s exit is particularly significant given his role in Tesla’s rapidly growing energy storage division. He was Tesla’s first Autobidder employee in Europe and helped scale the platform from 14 megawatt-hours in 2020 to approximately 1.3 gigawatt-hours by 2025. Tesla’s energy storage business has emerged as one of the company’s most profitable divisions, generating over $10 billion in revenue in 2024 and deploying 31.4 gigawatt-hours of storage systems—more than double the 14.7 gigawatt-hours deployed in 2023. The Autobidder platform has generated over $330 million in trading profits for energy investors.
Political and Mission Concerns
In his resignation letter, Balestrieri specifically criticized Musk’s political activities and their impact on Tesla’s environmental mission. He accused Musk of “lying to the public, manipulating public discourse, targeting minorities and supporting climate change deniers and political forces aligned with the oil and gas industry.” The engineer referenced the Trump administration’s efforts to slow the energy transition, including executive orders that have paused new wind and solar permits on federal lands, which directly conflict with Tesla’s stated mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Tesla and Musk have not responded to requests for comment about Balestrieri’s resignation, but the departure adds to mounting concerns about leadership stability at a time when the company faces declining sales and increased competition in its core markets.
