Milan Kovac, Tesla's vice president of Optimus robotics, announced his departure from the company on Friday. In a heartfelt post on X, Kovac expressed his gratitude towards Tesla CEO Elon Musk for his trust and teachings during their decade-long collaboration. "I want to thank @elonmusk from the bottom of my heart for his trust and teachings over the decade we've worked together," Kovac stated. "Elon, you've taught me to discern signal from noise, hardcore resilience, and many fundamental principles of engineering. I am forever grateful. Tesla will win, I guarantee you that." Elon Musk personally acknowledged Kovac's departure, thanking him for his "outstanding contributions" to the business.

Kovac's tenure at Tesla began in 2016. Before leading the Optimus unit as vice president, a role he assumed in 2022, Kovac served as the company's director of Autopilot software engineering. His departure marks a significant change in the leadership of Tesla's ambitious humanoid robot project.

Tesla is actively developing Optimus, a bipedal, intelligent robot designed for a wide range of tasks, from performing factory work to potentially even babysitting. The company showcased Optimus alongside two of its vehicles at the World Robot Conference in Beijing on August 22, 2024, highlighting its progress in the field. The ultimate aim is to sell Optimus commercially once it achieves the desired capabilities.

According to Tesla's first-quarter shareholder deck, the company is on schedule for "builds of Optimus on our Fremont pilot production line in 2025, with wider deployment of bots doing useful work across our factories." In recent statements to CNBC's David Faber, Elon Musk revealed that Tesla is currently training its Optimus systems to perform "primitive tasks," such as picking up objects, opening a door, or throwing a ball. This indicates the current stage of development for the humanoid robot.

Elon Musk, known for his ambitious projections, has expressed extreme optimism about Optimus's potential. During Tesla's 2024 annual shareholder meeting, Musk, describing himself as "pathologically optimistic," claimed that humanoid robots like Optimus could eventually elevate Tesla's market capitalization to an astounding $25 trillion, although no specific timeline was provided for this prediction.

The development of advanced humanoid robots is a competitive field. Tesla's Optimus faces competition from established players and emerging companies in the robotics space, including Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, 1X, and Figure. These companies are also making strides in creating versatile and capable robots.

Despite the significance of Kovac's departure and the ongoing developments with Optimus, Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.