Milan Kovac ran Elon Musk’s most important project: What does Optimus Head’s departure mean for Tesla?
- Optimus integrates all attributes Elon Musk Love Killer Products – The same set of hardware that can be produced at an affordable price on scale, but can meet a variety of needs through intelligent software features. Now, Tesla’s proud robotics project has lost its director who has been running the program since its establishment three years ago.
The brains behind CEO Elon Musk’s robot future dream of a trillion dollar dream is gone, and the impact is beginning to feel as staff say goodbye.
Friday, Milan Kobak announcement He will leave Tesla in more than nine years Spend more time abroad with his family. Naturalized European immigrants, he originally came to the US H-1B visa That musk claims It is essential to America’s competitiveness.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of his departure for Tesla, as Musk himself predicts Kovac’s humanoid robot Optimus will need to add $25 trillion to its market capitalization. Investors have shown social media updates posts on social media, including videos of rustic dances in two metallic feet last month.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2025
“We appreciate Milan, for your outstanding contribution to Tesla over the past decade. It was an honor to work with you,” the entrepreneur admitted Friday.
Optimus incorporates all the properties that masks want.
Kovac, who has been in charge of the Optimus Robot Program since its launch in 2022 and was promoted to Vice President in September, has not been one of the more publicly available Tesla executives. It’s also not so uncommon for key personnel to succumb to the brutal crush that comes with working for tough CEOs like masks.
Kovac’s retirement has been the head of the program since its inception. It probably represents a loss that is most similar to the departure of Tesla’s former director of artificial intelligence. Andrei Carpathy3 years ago.
“This is different. You’re a Tesla Hall of Fame, brother,” writes Ryan Donnelly, Tesla’s North American Recruitment Director. “We’re grateful for being the glue that challenges us, inspires us, and brings things together.”
Named after the Autobot leader of Hasbro’s popular trans franchise, Optimus is more than just a potential revenue stream. Tesla’s future.
From the beginning, Musk predicted that robots would be more important to the company than to the EV business.
Integrate all attributes of A Killer Products Its musk loves one of the standardized hardware that can be produced at a large scale and at an affordable price, but can meet the needs of various markets thanks to constantly improving software updates.
“This will be bigger than a car,” he said in April 2022. He claimed this sounded even more ambitious when it seemed that there were no restrictions on Tesla’s EV sales.
Design for a Utopian Society Based on Sustainable Abundance
Kovac may not have had a public profile of Karpathy or Chief Vehicle Engineer Lars Moravy, but his role was at the heart of Tesla’s impartial story.
Musk predicted that the droids Kobak is creating will revolutionize human behavior, and in his vision, everyone in the world owns at least one robot, eliminating the upper limit of economic growth.
He called this the era of “.Sustainable richness“The world’s first utopian society, with no greater rarity.
2023 is great for Optimus.
We have moved from an exploratory prototype (Bumblebee/CEE) to a more stable Tesla-designed platform (Optimus Gen-1).
We improved the moving stack. pic.twitter.com/ycnd0sthbd
-MilanKovac (@_milankovac_) December 31, 2023
However, Musk recently revealed the challenges Tesla is working on with an entirely new supply chain and technology, remarking that he “deeply worked” to equip Optimus with existing ready-made actuators and sensors.
“We design trains and stations in real time and build trucks,” he said. I said During a revenue call for the fourth quarter of January.
Optimus also suffers from a significant proportion of negative publicity, affecting what robotics companies are working on High expectations.
“Tesla wins, I guarantee that to you.”
Musk won criticism in January 2024 for posting a video of the Optimus folding laundry, which initially did not mention that the robot hadn’t made its own consent.
This was repeated at a Cybercab open event in October, called “We, Robot,” and a version of the two-legged droid interacted with the guests, making them believe they were less wise and more intelligent. Remotely operated by humans.
In April, the CEO revealed that robot ambitions were also a victim of a shortage Rare Earth Magnet Major refinement was caused by China.
However, these set-offs have not eased the mask’s enthusiasm. He predicts that Tesla will build at least 5,000 this year, and will, as he said, become a comparable sized Roman legion before increasing 200 times in 2029.
“I think we’ll expand Optimus faster than any other product in history and reach millions of units a year as soon as possible,” he said in a first quarter revenue call.
On goodbye on Friday, Kobak spoke humbled.
The accomplishments achieved were his team, he argued. As a result, the Optimus project was not at risk.
“My departure is no different now,” he said.
This story was originally introduced Fortune.com