When Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn stepped down last August, Wall Street analysts and investors alike were unnerved. The stock shed more than $23 billion on the news, with one top tech analyst describing the announcement as "a blow in the near term" and a "big surprise to the Street." It was the second CFO departure in just four years. The resignation of previous finance chief Deepak Ahuja in 2019 also tanked the stock.
Each quarterly earnings season, investors listen closely to financial chiefs for their outlooks on revenue growth and future profitability — at times causing massive fluctuation in share price. Consider Club holding Microsoft : In July, the stock plunged more than 7% in extended trading on the company's July 30 fourth-quarter earnings release. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood shared that Azure, Microsoft's all-important cloud computing business, missed on revenue growth.