Pickle Robot adds Tesla veteran as first CFO

Pickle Robot, which builds autonomous unloading robots for warehouses and distribution centers, announced a new chief financial officer just days after a report of a major deal with UPS.

The Charlestown, Massachusetts-based company announced that it hired Jeff Evanson as its CFO on Thursday. Evanson had been consulting for the company since September and recently joined full time.

Evanson previously served as the vice president of global investor relations and strategy at Tesla from 2011 to 2017. In that role, he worked directly with Elon Musk and helped the company raise debt and equity financing to support the launch of multiple Tesla vehicle lines and company acquisitions.

Evanson will be Pickle’s first CFO and joins as the company — founded in 2018 with around $100 million in venture capital raised — reportedly expands its partnership with shipping giant UPS. According to Bloomberg, UPS is investing $120 million to purchase 400 of Pickle’s robots, with deployment beginning in late 2026 and early 2027.

Pickle declined to comment on this week’s UPS news. A Pickle spokesperson did confirm that UPS has been a Pickle customer for a few years but wouldn’t confirm when the partnership started.