Jeffrey Brian (JB) Straubel, Tesla’s chief technical officer
The forty-two-year-old Stanford University graduate engineer occasionally appears on Elon Musk’s site, and his word is likely to be with Musk. Straubel co-founded Tesla with Musk in 2003, he is considered the technical mastermind of the electric car manufacturer. As technical director, he also sits on the three-member Tesla board – and ultimately is responsible for the technical design of all Tesla models.