Tesla’s Optimus robot VP is leaving the company

The head of the Tesla Optimus Humanoid Robot Program, Milan Kovac, leaves the company.

Kovac told Friday a post In the X, he had to make the most difficult decision to leave his life. “I have long been away from home and have had more time abroad,” he said. Kovac said that the “sole reason” and the support of the support for Musk and Tesla is “ironclad”.

Kovac’s march was first reported on Friday By Bloomberg news.

Departure Tesla CEO comes as Elon Musk claimed The company will be “Thousands” of optimus robots operating in factories by the end of this year. “And we expect to reach millions of units faster than any product, as soon as possible in history, as soon as possible, as soon as possible.

Kovac, for about 10 years in Tesla, most of the time comes as a top engineer in the autopilot team. In 2022, it was stuck to help develop Optimus and monitored the program in late 2024.

“I manage the Optimus Program (Tesla’s Humanoid Robot) and all engineering groups,” Kovac wrote in the profile of LinkedIn before. “Also, I also manage engineering groups responsible for the general program foundations and infrastructure between Optimus and Autopilot.”

Ashok Elluswamy, Vice President of Tesla’s AI program department, will take over the Optimus project.

This story was updated with information about his progress from the Kovac’s x articles.