Tesla’s Optimus robot VP is reportedly leaving the company

Milan Kovac, the leader of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot initiative, is reportedly departing from the company, as reported by Bloomberg News. This announcement comes at a pivotal moment when Tesla CEO Elon Musk has asserted that the company aims to deploy 'thousands' of Optimus robots within its factories by the end of this year. Musk expressed ambitious goals, stating, "We expect to scale Optimus up faster than any product, I think, in history, to achieve millions of units per year as quickly as possible." Kovac, who has been with Tesla for nearly a decade, previously served as a leading engineer on the Autopilot team before taking the helm of the Optimus project in 2022. By late 2024, he was promoted to vice president of the program. In his LinkedIn profile, Kovac highlighted his dual role, stating, "I’m driving the Optimus program (Tesla’s humanoid robot) & all its engineering teams. Separately, I’m also driving the engineering teams responsible for all the software foundations & infrastructure common between Optimus and Autopilot." Following Kovac's exit, Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of Tesla’s AI software division, is set to take over the leadership of the Optimus project.