Tesla executive Klaus Grohmann was ousted last month after a clash with Chief Executive Elon Musk over the strategy of Grohmann's firm, Reuters reported.

Grohmann's company, Grohmann Engineering, specializes in automation, and Tesla purchased the company last November to help the EV-maker reach its goal of producing 500,000 vehicles per year by 2018. Tesla planned to keep Grohmann on as an executive, but repeated clashes with Musk seem to have made that difficult.

Reached by phone by Reuters, Klaus Grohmann declined to comment on the circumstances of his leaving, citing confidentiality clauses, he just said that "I definitely did not depart because I had lost interest in working."