(Reuters) -The head of Tesla’s Optimus program, Milan Kovac, is leaving the company, casting uncertainty over chief executive Elon Musk’s humanoid robot project, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Kovac, vice president and head of engineering for Optimus, told colleagues on Friday that he was departing, effective immediately. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s autopilot teams, will take on Kovac’s role, the report said.
Tesla, Kovac and Elluswamy did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Musk has earlier said he expected Tesla to make thousands of Optimus robots this year.
He said in April that China’s export restrictions on rare-earth magnets had affected production of the humanoid robots.
Tesla has shifted focus to launching the robots and its robotaxi service, with much of the company’s valuation hanging on that bet.
“The only things that matter in the long term are autonomy and Optimus,” Musk told CNBC in an interview in May.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Pooja Desai)
