Tesla China boss Tom Zhu named SVP due to booming sales in the country

China has been a major driver of Tesla sales lately, thanks to the company’s aggressive price cuts. The country delivered 88,869 vehicles in March, according to new estimates from the China Passenger Car Association. This means that more than half of the automaker’s deliveries in the first quarter came from its Shanghai factory.

It’s no surprise, then, that Tom Zhu, the executive behind Tesla’s rise in China, has risen rapidly through the company’s ranks in recent years. Zhu began serving as senior vice president of Tesla’s automotive unit in April, a new filing with the SEC shows. The appointment makes the executive one of four most important faces at the electric vehicle powerhouse alongside CEO Elon Musk, CFO Zachary Kirkhorn and Andrew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering.

According to the filing, Zhu joined Tesla in 2014 and served in various operational roles before being named vice president of Greater China, where he led the construction and operations of Gigafactory Shanghai. As the company’s production in China was in full swing, the 43-year-old executive was brought to Texas to run the new Gigafactory in Austin, Bloomberg reported in December.

The success of Tesla’s Chinese factory has not been easy. Like Musk, Zhu is known for embracing a hard-core work ethic. During Shanghai’s COVID-19 lockdown, he slept in the factory with other workers to keep production running, according to a Reuters report.