Tesla’s AI head departs after lengthy sabbatical
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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) AI and Autopilot Vision chief Andrej Karpathy announced late Wednesday that he has left the company.
âItâs been a great pleasure to help Tesla towards its goals over the last 5 years and a difficult decision to part ways,â he wrote in a Twitter post. âIn that time, Autopilot graduated from lane keeping to city streets and I look forward to seeing the exceptionally strong Autopilot team continue that momentum.â
The Slovak-born scientist stated that he has âno concrete plansâ for his next step, indicating he did not depart the company for a new opportunity. Karpathy had been on sabbatical since March, when CEO Elon Musk stated he would be taking an approximately 4 month break for unspecified reasons. 
Musk thanked the former company director in a reply to Karpathyâs initial post.
The departure follows shortly after the disclosure of 229 layoffs within the autopilot team tied to the closing of the San Mateo office. His exit also comes only about 2 months before the companyâs planned AI day. 
The autopilot program has come under fire in recent months as regulators probe crashes and incidents of unexpected braking.