Ex Google Exec Wheeler Named Tesla Motors CFO; Firm Expected To Do Well In The Next Quarter

Tesla Motors Inc. named Jason Wheeler as its new CFO or Chief Financial Officer.

Wheeler is formerly Google's vice president of finance, reported IB Times. He replaces Deepak Ahuja who is retiring this year, about which he already announced in June. Ahuja has been with Tesla since 2008, seeing it through public offering.

Tesla Motors swung higher on Tuesday afternoon despite not meeting Wall Street expectations on its third quarter results.

It is expected to improve on strong guidance for future deliveries. It said it had an adjusted loss of 58 cents a share on $1.24 billion revenue. A Thomson Reuters consensus estimate the company to report a 50 cent per share loss on $1.26 billion in revenue, said CNBC.

Shares did drop initially after trading hours but Tesla jumped 10 percent higher once the quarterly report was further evaluated.

Its CEO and chairman Elon Musk announced during the earnings call that Tesla Motors hired ex Google exec Wheeler as its next CFO, who will take over when Ahuja's planned retirement will be realized next month. Both Ahuja and Wheeler will work together or a few months for the transition.

Speaking of Wheeler, Musk said he is "basically the number two finance guy at Google," and explained that this new hire has been handling the Internet giant's global finances.

Tesla Motors new CFO could have been Google's CFO, as earlier reports suggested. "I just thought he was a super smart guy, and really understood what we were doing, and was a great cultural fit for the company," Musk said.

Tesla Motors said it plans to build between 15k to 17k vehicles in the fourth quarter, and deliver between 17k to 19k, or 50k to 52k deliveries a year.

Records say it delivered 11,603 vehicles in the quarter, a bit more than its 11,580 estimate in October. Analysts expect the car maker to have about 16,960 deliveries in the fourth quarter, but the company admits it has current production issues.