Tesla Hires New General Counsel

Tesla Inc. has named Dane Butswinkas, a seasoned trial lawyer with experience in both criminal and civil cases, to succeed Todd Maron as the company’s general counsel.

Butswinkas (right) spent nearly 30 years at Williams & Connolly LLP, a high-powered Washington, D.C., law firm. He began working with Tesla this autumn as the company’s outside counsel in the wake of misleading tweets by CEO Elon Musk that led to a $40 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and forced Musk to step down as chairman.

At Tesla, Butswinkas will oversee the company’s legal and government relations team. He will report directly to Musk.

Maron, who joined Tesla in 2013 after serving as Musk’s divorce lawyer, will stay on through the end of the year to work with Butswinkas through the transition. The carmaker says the change has been in the works since July. Before Maron, Tesla went through three general counsels between 2009 and 2012.

Maron joins a long list of top executives who have left Tesla in the past year. In November, Phil Rothenberg, Tesla’s vice president of legal, who had experience at the SEC, quit to become the general counsel at hospitality startup Sonder Inc.

Other departures include the company’s chief accounting officer, the vice presidents of engineering and finance, and the heads of human resources, communications, supply chain management, battery engineering, global sales and North American sales.