Aug 11 (Reuters) - Piero Landolfi, Tesla's

director of service for the North American market has left the

EV maker after nearly nine years, joining an exodus of

executives from the company grappling with a drop in sales.

Leaving Tesla was hard due to "the first principle thinking

and the getting stuff done mentality" at the company, Landolfi

said in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.

Landolfi has now joined AI robotics and autonomous

e-commerce technology company Nimble as its senior vice

president of operations, per his LinkedIn profile.

His move is the latest of a string of departures from the

electric carmaker, joining Troy Jones, Tesla's top sales

executive in North America, who left in July after 15 years with

the company.

Raj Jegannathan, a senior executive with a wide purview

including several IT and data functions, recently took over the

sales role, Reuters reported exclusively last month.

Other key figures who left include Omead Afshar, Tesla CEO

Elon Musk's confidant, who was in charge of sales and

manufacturing operations in North America and Europe.

Milan Kovac, the head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot

team, announced he was leaving in June. Other recent departures

include top battery executive Vineet Mehta and software chief

David Lau.

Musk's EV maker posted the worst quarterly sales decline in

more than a decade and profit that missed Wall Street targets in

July; its profit margin on making cars, however, was better than

many feared.

Musk had said that U.S. government cuts in support for EV

makers could lead to a "few rough quarters" for Tesla, before a

wave of revenue from self-driving software and services begins

late next year.