Tesla’s Optimus Robot VP is Reportedly Leaving

Bloomberg News reports that Milan Kovac, who leads Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program, is departing the company.

Musk Envisions Rapid Expansion of Optimus Amid Leadership Change

The departure follows CEO Elon Musk’s recent claim that Tesla will have “thousands” of Optimus robots working in its factories by year’s end. Musk also stated last month that the company aims to scale up Optimus production faster than any product in history, targeting millions of units annually as soon as possible.

Kovac spent nearly a decade at Tesla, primarily as a senior engineer on the Autopilot team. He began helping lead the Optimus project in 2022 and was promoted to vice president in charge of the program in late 2024.

On his LinkedIn profile, Kovac previously stated that he was leading the Optimus program and its engineering teams. He also noted that he oversaw the engineering groups responsible for the shared software foundations and infrastructure between Optimus and Autopilot.

According to Bloomberg, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Vice President of AI Software, will assume leadership of the Optimus project.

Read the original article on: Techcrunch

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