Earlier this week, Tesla Ashlee Ramanathan, a senior associate in charge of regulatory credits, announced her departure on social media, days after Tesla reported second-quarter revenue of $890 million from sales of regulatory credits.

Ramanathan said in the post that she made the "difficult decision" to leave Tesla a few weeks ago.

“Tesla is more than a job: it’s an all-consuming mission that continually demands my time and effort as we close deals to sell emissions credits to obligated parties around the world, including auto and oil and gas companies,” she wrote.

Talking about her plans, Ramanathan said she would take a break for a few weeks before starting another job.

Regulatory credits are incentives the U.S. government provides to automakers that sell electric vehicles. Every company is supposed to have a minimum number of regulatory credits each year, or they must buy them from other companies that have excess credits.

Considering that Tesla only sells electric vehicles, they have excess credits that they can sell to other companies for a profit.

According to Tesla's 10Q filing, the company had $4.9 billion worth of unfulfilled or partially unfulfilled regulatory credit sales contracts as of June 30. Of that, $459 million is expected to be recognized within the next 12 months, and the remainder will be recognized over time.

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