Pickle Robot adds Tesla veteran as first CFO

Pickle Robot, which builds autonomous unloading robots for warehouses and distribution centers, announced the hiring of a new CFO just days after a report on a major deal with UPS.

The Charleston, Massachusetts-based company announced it has appointed Jeff Evanson as its chief financial officer on Thursday. Evanson has been working as a consultant for the company since September and recently joined full-time.

Evanson previously served as Vice President of Global Investor Relations and Strategy at Tesla from 2011 to 2017. In this role, he worked directly with Elon Musk and helped the company raise debt and equity financing to support the launch of Tesla’s multiple vehicle lines and company acquisitions.

Evanson will be Pickle’s first CFO and will join the company — which was founded in 2018 with about $100 million in venture capital — and is said to be expanding its partnership with shipping giant UPS. According to Bloomberg, UPS is investing $120 million to purchase 400 of Pickle’s robots, with deployment starting in late 2026/early 2027.

Bickel declined to comment on this week’s UPS news. A Pickle spokesperson confirmed that UPS has been a Pickle customer for a few years, but would not confirm when the partnership began.