VW CEO Herbert Diess to leave by the end of August: Will Tesla try to hire him again?

Credit: Herbert Diess

Written by Cláudio Afonso | [email protected] | LinkedIn | Twitter

Volkswagen announced Friday that its CEO Herbert Diess will leave on the last day of August being replaced by Porsche CEO Oliver Blume. In 2014, Herbert Diess left BMW, and signed a contract with the Volkswagen Group later that year – he would take over as Chairman of the Board on July 1, 2015.

According to Automotive News Europe, Tesla already had a contract for the CEO position ready to be signed by Diess, thus “freeing” Musk, who wanted to focus on his position as chairman of the company.

“The Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG and Dr. Herbert Diess have agreed today that Dr. Diess will leave the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG by mutual consent with effect as of 1 September 2022. Dr. Diess will be succeeded by Dr. Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Board of Management of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. Dr. Oliver Blume will also remain Chairman of the Board of Management of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. In today’s meeting, the Supervisory Board also resolved that the CFO of Volkswagen AG, Dr. Arno Antlitz, will additionally assume the position as Chief Operating Officer and thus support Dr. Blume with day-to-day operations,” Volkswagen said.

Recently, Volkswagen Group reported the delivery of 217,100 pure electric vehicles in the first half of the year, an increase of 27% compared to the same period of 2021. The Group mentioned that faced “ongoing supply bottlenecks, a temporary stop of production in Europe and Covid-related lockdowns in China” during the last months.

In the first half of the year, the core brand Volkswagen delivered 115,900 electric vehicles to customers (share of Group total: 53 percent). Audi followed with 50,000 vehicles (23 percent), ŠKODA with 22,200 vehicles (10 percent), Porsche with 18,900 vehicles (9 percent), and SEAT/CUPRA with 8,300 vehicles (4 percent).

Written by Cláudio Afonso | [email protected] | LinkedIn | Twitter

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Cláudio Afonso
Cláudio Afonso is the Founder and Editor of EV, an independent electric vehicle news publication owned by CARBA Investments, the company he founded in early 2021. Between 2022 and 2024 he worked in European corporate communications at Nio, and he returned to lead EV in April 2024. He is based in Portugal.