Former Tesla CFO joins drone delivery startup Zipline

Former Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja will join Zipline’s leadership team as the company’s chief business officer and CFO, Zipline announced Friday.

Zipline is a Silicon Valley-based robotics company that delivers supplies to hard-to-reach areas using drones. It initially focused on medical supplies, but is expanding into e-commerce and food delivery. The company has previously partnered with the Rwandan government to deliver medical supplies and handled Covid-19 vaccine distribution in Ghana, and has expanded operations from three to seven countries over the last two years, according to a release.

Ahuja served as the CFO of Tesla from March 2017 to March 2019, but he first joined the company in 2008. He was with Tesla when it went public in 2010 and briefly left in the company 2015.

Ahuja will join Zipline on Sept. 30.

“Rarely do I see this level of disruption and impact paired with the world-class technology that Zipline’s team is building,” Ahuja said in a release. “It’s an exciting time for Zipline, and I’m thrilled to join the team as we keep building to offer these solutions at a massive scale.”