Tesla’s humanoid robot project, Optimus, has lost a key leader as Milan Kovac, the director who has overseen the program since its inception three years ago, announced his departure from the company.
Kovac, who had been with Tesla for more than nine years, said he was leaving to spend more time with his family abroad.
Optimus is a project that CEO Elon Musk has described as potentially Tesla’s most important product development—one that could add as much as $25 trillion in value to the company’s market capitalization. Musk envisions Optimus as a scalable, standardized robot platform that can meet diverse needs through software upgrades, uniting the hardware and AI capabilities Musk champions.
Kovac’s exit comes at a critical time for Optimus, which has gained significant attention from investors and the tech industry alike. Musk has been vocal about the robot’s potential to surpass the company’s electric vehicle business in importance, calling it “bigger than the car.” Despite high expectations, Optimus has faced challenges, including supply chain issues and scrutiny over its public demonstrations, where robots were sometimes remotely operated rather than fully autonomous.
During his tenure, Kovac was credited with moving Optimus from an early exploratory prototype to a more stable and refined platform. While not a public-facing figure like some of Tesla’s other executives, Kovac’s role was central to the company’s robotics ambitions. He assured followers that his departure would not disrupt the project, stating, “My departure now will not change a thing,” and expressed confidence that “Tesla will win, I guarantee you that.”
Tesla’s CEO also acknowledged Kovac’s contributions, thanking him for his “outstanding contribution to Tesla over the past decade.” Industry insiders note that Kovac’s departure is comparable in impact to when Tesla’s former AI director Andrej Karpathy left three years ago.
Looking ahead, Bloomberg reports that Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of Autopilot, will take over leadership of the Optimus project. The company remains focused on its ambitious production goals, with Musk projecting the manufacture of thousands of robots this year—potentially scaling to tens of thousands in the coming years. However, Tesla continues to navigate external challenges such as export restrictions on critical materials from China, which are essential for building the robots.
