Meet Ashok Elluswamy: India-origin engineer to lead Tesla's Optimus robot project

Indian-origin Ashok Elluswamy to head Tesla's Optimus robot project

Ashok Elluswamy, currently leading Tesla's Autopilot team, will now oversee the Optimus humanoid robot program, Bloomberg reports.

Milan Kovac, head of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program since 2022 and promoted to vice president last year, has announced he is stepping down to spend more time with his family abroad.

"I've been far away from home for too long, and will need to spend more time with family abroad. I want to make it clear that this is the only reason," Kovac said in his social media post.

Elon Musk reshared a 2015 tweet about Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI, which has gone viral again. The original post read, “Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact autopilot@teslamotors.com.”

This tweet 9 years ago was how I started the Autopilot, now AI, team at Tesla.Ashok, who now leads the team, was the first person I interviewed.Milan, who leads Optimus, also joined very early.Many of the key people in Tesla AI have been there from the beginning. https://t.co/yck84sSS0X
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2025

Musk previously stated that Tesla aims to produce thousands of Optimus robots this year. In April, he mentioned that China's export restrictions on rare-earth magnets had impacted the production of these humanoid robots.

Tesla has now concentrated on launching both the robots and its robotaxi service, with a significant portion of the company’s valuation depending on the success of these ventures.

"The only things that matter in the long term are autonomy and Optimus," Musk told CNBC in May.

Who is Ashok Elluswamy? 

Ashok Elluswamy, based in San Francisco, has been the Director of Tesla’s Autopilot Software since 2019. A robotics engineer by training, he earned his Master of Science in Robotic Systems Development from Carnegie Mellon University.

He was the first engineer to join Tesla’s AI/Autopilot team in 2014 and has since led the development of all AI and Autopilot software. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai.

Before joining Tesla, he worked as a Software Engineer at WABCO Vehicle Control Systems and completed a research internship with Volkswagen’s Electronic Research Lab, where he contributed to autonomous driving projects.

His expertise spans robotics, computer vision, perception, planning, and control, as detailed on his LinkedIn profile.