Tesla drama heats up as autopilot chief departs
Elon, what is going on with your employees?
Tesla's head of autopilot tech, Jim Keller, is leaving for a new gig at Intel. He's now the third autopilot executive to step down in less than two years.
Tesla told the Wall Street Journal that Keller is leaving to pursue his passion for microprocessor engineering. Uh-huh.
Under Keller, Tesla's autopilot software was implicated in a fatal crash in March. Musk has also publicly promised progress on autopilot, and failed to meet his own deadlines.
Keller's predecessors were Chris Lattner and Sterling Anderson. Lattner left after only six months at Tesla as autopilot program director. After Anderson left Tesla in January 2017 to start his own self-driving technology company, Tesla filed a lawsuit against him for violating his contract. The suit was settled within three months.
Keller's departure just adds more evidence to the perception that all is not well in the land of Musk. Tesla is behind on production and distribution of its more affordable sedan, the Model 3. It also recently lost its CFO and chief sales officer.
Technical frustrations and pressure may be driving these employees away, sure. But their eccentric and demanding boss, Musk, is probably not helping matters, either.
