Overview

• Milan Kovac stepped down June 6 after leading the Optimus program since 2022 to spend more time with his family abroad.
• Elluswamy, who joined Tesla’s AI and Autopilot team in 2014 and became director of Autopilot Software in 2019, has assumed leadership of the humanoid robot initiative.
• He was promoted to vice president of the AI Software team last year before taking on the Optimus assignment.
• Tesla launched the Optimus project in 2021 to build humanoid robots for internal factory tasks with broader commercial availability targeted by 2026.
• Elon Musk praised Elluswamy as a key driver of Tesla’s autonomy efforts, saying the company would “just be another car company” without his contributions.