Tesla reorganizes its Autopilot software team again, with Musk in charge

Tesla is reorganizing its Autopilot software team again, with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk taking the reins, with more people now reporting directly to him, some executives being fired and others being promoted, according to people familiar with the matter.

Tesla in general is known for its high turnover rate, and that's especially true among the company's Autopilot team.

The team has gone through several leaders over the years, and in 2016, Autopilot program director Sterling Anderson left the company to start his own startup in the self-driving space.

Chris Lattner, a respected software developer who developed Apple's programming language, was then hired to lead the Autopilot software team, but he only worked at Tesla for about six months.

Last year, the company ultimately hired Snap's Stuart Bowers as vice president of Autopilot software.

During that time, many other executives on the Autopilot software team left as Tesla's development of driver-assistance features became more urgent as it looked to launch a fully self-driving system more quickly.

Over the past year, the team seemed to have stabilized, with Powers in charge of software and Andrej Karpathy as head of artificial intelligence (AI) and Autopilot Vision. Last month, during Tesla's Investor Autonomy Day, they both gave presentations on Tesla's progress in developing a fully self-driving system, but not everything went as planned.

Tesla fired several Autopilot team members before the event and in the days that followed, people familiar with the matter said, and a few weeks later the Autopilot software team was reorganized.

Several of Bowles' responsibilities were eliminated, while people working for him were promoted and will now report directly to Musk, according to people familiar with the matter.

Among those promoted was Milan Kovac, a software engineer who has served in various roles on Tesla's Autopilot team over the past three years, who was promoted to director of software engineering for Tesla's Autopilot.

Several other senior Autopilot engineers were fired as part of the reorganization, while others were promoted.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.