Tesla CEO Elon Musk: 'This tweet 9 years ago was how I started....'

Tesla

CEO Elon Musk shared a throwback post highlighting the origins of the electric carmaker’s Autopilot and AI team, offering a rare look into how some of the company’s most critical talent came on board. “Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact [email protected],” the tech billionaire wrote in his 2015 post.Resharing the post, Musk wrote: “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.”The post underscores the long-term contributions of Tesla’s AI leaders, including

Ashok Elluswamy

, Director of Autopilot Software, and Milan Kovac, a senior figure behind Tesla’s humanoid robot project, Optimus. Musk noted that “many of the key people in Tesla AI have been there from the beginning,” praising the team’s loyalty and foundational role in the company’s AI advancements.

The post underscores Tesla’s AI strategy, which, per their website, emphasizes advanced AI for vision and planning—key to their goal of general solutions for

full self-driving

and bi-pedal robotics, a vision Musk has consistently pushed since 2015.Tesla’s Autopilot system, now evolving into Full Self-Driving (FSD), has been central to the company’s strategy of integrating AI into transportation. Under Elluswamy’s leadership, the AI team has developed key neural networks and driving models that power Tesla’s driver-assist features. Musk’s mention of Milan and the Optimus project signals a broader expansion of Tesla’s AI capabilities, now moving beyond vehicles to robotics.