Tesla hires new top lawyer to lead its scary ‘hardcore litigation’ team

Tesla hired a new top lawyer to lead its “hardcore litigation” team that CEO Elon Musk announced last year.

Over the years, Tesla has been involved in hundreds of legal matters, which is not unusual for a company of its size.

Most of the time, Tesla is the defendant. However, lately, we have noticed that Tesla is more often on the offensive.

The company initiated several lawsuits to protect its intellectual property, including against former employees and companies like Rivian and Zoox.

Tesla went as far as suing social media personalities and even news publications in China for spreading misinformation about the company.

This more aggressive legal approach came as CEO Elon Musk announced last year that Tesla is building a “hardcore litigation department.” Musk made the announcement on Twitter:

Tesla is building a hardcore litigation department where we directly initiate and execute lawsuits. The team will report directly to me.

The mention of “directly initiate and execute lawsuits” made it clear that Tesla was going to be aggressive.

Tesla has had a lot of comings and goings in the leadership positions in its legal department, with four different heads of legal over the last four years. Now, we learn that Tesla has found a leader for this “hardcore litigation department.”

Brian Jazaeri, a long-time partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, one of the largest law firms in North America, has been hired as the new head of litigation at Tesla this month.

Electrek spotted the update in his LinkedIn profile earlier this week.

Before joining Tesla this month, Jazaeri had a stint as the head of litigation at DaVita, a large healthcare company that was accused by the Justice Department of colluding on employee recruitment.

Based on his title at Tesla, it appears that Jazaeri will be in charge of the “hardcore litigation” team and, therefore, report directly to Musk.