Tesla Organizational Structure: divisional and flexible
Tesla is a unique company in many ways and this uniqueness also extends to its organizational culture. Tesla organizational structure integrates the following:
1. Unique organizational structure. “Tesla, unlike most companies its size, doesn’t have any known management structure. There’s no organizational chart or public list of senior leaders.”[1] Nevertheless, Tesla organizational structure can be characterized as divisional.
2. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has issues with delegation. Workaholic and micromanagement nature of Elon Musk, as well as his sleep deprivation work habits have become well-known. Famous author and businesswoman Arianna Huffington even wrote an open letter to Musk urging him to get more sleep and learn to delegate. Musk’s issues with delegation has implications on Tesla corporate structure in a way that he has more people directly reporting to him than any other CEO in auto industry.
3. Divisional and flexible structure. Although it is difficult to list Tesla organizational structure under a specific rigid category due to its unique nature, the structure can be characterised as divisional and flexible.
As it is illustrated in figure below, Tesla organizational structure comprises a number of divisions such as energy, engineering and production, HR and communications, legal and finance, sales and software. Each division is led by several vice presidents, except software division, which is led by one vice president and Director of Artificial Intelligence.
Tesla Organizational Structure
Tesla benefits from divisional organizational structure through less bureaucracy compared to many other companies of similar sizes. Divisional organizational structure also helps the electric automaker to increase the speed of communication among different layers of management with positive implications on decision making and flexibility of the business.
Tesla Inc. Report contains the above analysis of Tesla organizational structure. The report illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis, Ansoff Matrix and McKinsey 7S Model on Tesla. Moreover, the report contains analyses of Tesla leadership, business strategy and organizational culture. The report also comprises discussions of Tesla marketing strategy, ecosystem and addresses issues of corporate social responsibility.
[1] Hull, D. & Pogkas, D. (2018) “Elon Musk Doesn’t Work Alone. These Are Tesla’s Other Key Leaders” Bloomberg, Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-org-chart/