Elon Musk fired Tesla’s head of operations in North America and Europe, amid declining sales in both regions and the electric vehicle brand’s falling popularity, according to people familiar with the matter.

Omead Afshar, who started with Tesla as an engineer in 2017, had become one of Musk’s top lieutenants and was elevated to vice president to oversee business in the two key regions last October. He didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did Musk or Tesla.

Afshar’s removal comes a few days before the end of the second quarter and follows news that Tesla’s EV sales dropped for a fifth consecutive month in Europe. U.S. sales are also down this year and China, the Austin-based company’s top market, saw a 15% drop in May. Equity analysts are anticipating a decline in Tesla’s EV deliveries of at least 10% worldwide in the quarter that ends on June 30, to about 392,800 units compared with 443,956 a year ago.

Musk’s close affiliation with and massive financial support for President Donald Trump have negatively impacted the Tesla brand, particularly during his stint running the federal job-slashing DOGE initiative. The company desperately needs to improve its lineup, following the failure of the much-derided Cybertruck to hit volume goals Musk laid out for it, and figure out how to compete with fast-rising Chinese rivals. But rather than add new electric models to boost sales, the world’s wealthiest person has sought to convince investors that the company’s future lies with a new robotaxi service, humanoid robots and AI. It’s a tricky pivot since electric cars, batteries and charging services account for virtually all of Tesla’s revenue.

The company launched a pilot version of its robotaxi service in Austin on June 22, and while there have been no accidents or injuries so far, it quickly became clear that Tesla is not ready to go head-to-head with Alphabet’s Waymo. The small number of Tesla Model Ys in the Austin pilot gave automated rides with safety technicians in the front seat, the service was only made available to a small group of pre-selected riders and operated in about a 30-square-mile section of the city. Despite this highly controlled environment, there were several reports of erratic behavior by the test vehicles and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday it was reviewing those incidents with the company.

In a November 2024 profile of Afshar, the Wall Street Journal called him “Musk’s fixer” and one of the most powerful executives at the company. He shifted to Tesla’s headquarters in Austin last year when Musk restructured his leadership team. Afshar celebrated the robotaxi rollout in a June 23 post on X. “Absolutely historic day for Tesla. This has been *years* of hard work and focus by so many people within the company,” he wrote. “Thank you, Elon, for pushing us all!”

His departure, also reported by Bloomberg, comes after Milan Kovac, head of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot team left the company earlier this month.

Tesla shares were little changed on Thursday, closing at $325.78. The stock is down 19% this year.