Tesla robotics head exits as Optimus pushes for mass production

Tesla just lost the engineer running its most hyped division.

Milan Kovac, the head of engineering for Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus, announced on X that he left the company last Friday. Kovac had been with Tesla for a decade, and his sudden departure comes right as the company tries to pull off its most aggressive robot timeline yet.

Kovac tried to get ahead of the rumors, insisting he only left to spend time with family abroad and that his support for Elon Musk and the team remains ironclad. Musk quickly followed up with a post thanking Kovac for his outstanding contributions over the past ten years.

Steering two wheels and two legs

Optimus is not getting put on ice, but it is changing hands. According to Bloomberg, Tesla’s Autopilot chief Ashok Elluswamy is stepping in to take over the robotics unit.

Elluswamy is walking into a massive crunch. In March, Musk claimed Tesla would build at least one legion of robots this year and likely 10 legions next year. In raw numbers, that translates to roughly 5,000 Optimus units by the end of this year and 50,000 robots by 2026.

That is an enormous target, especially since Tesla is leaning harder than ever on robotics hype to cushion slowing EV sales and a battered stock price. As Musk told CNBC in May, the only things that matter for Tesla long-term are autonomy and Optimus. Meanwhile, the company is already stretched thin preparing to launch its Austin Robotaxi service this month.

On top of executive churn, there is a hard hardware problem looming: Tesla has to navigate recent Chinese export restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets, which are essential parts for assembling these humanoids.

Why it matters

If you were hoping to buy a general-purpose butler bot anytime soon, do not hold your breath. This leadership shakeup signals that Tesla's ambitious production ramp is hitting serious turbulence.

Handing the keys of Optimus to the Autopilot chief makes sense on paper, since both rely heavily on Tesla’s vision models and end-to-end neural nets. But we think saddling one executive with both Robotaxi and a massive humanoid manufacturing push is asking for trouble. Building cars and tuning factory actuators are fundamentally different games.

Musk has been brilliant at leveraging the Optimus vision to keep investors excited while EV growth stalls. But promising 5,000 robots in a year while your lead engineer walks out the door and supply chains for critical magnets tighten up is a very risky gamble. As rivals like Figure and Boston Dynamics pick up speed, Tesla's robotics team has zero room for distraction.