Former Tesla Vice President Milan Kovac (pictured), regarded as one of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s closest confidants, is joining Hyundai Motor Group. Hyundai Motor Group announced on the 16th that it has appointed Kovac, who served at Tesla as the overall head of the humanoid robot “Optimus,” as an outside director of the group’s robotics specialist company Boston Dynamics.

Joining Tesla in 2016, Director Kovac is credited with significantly advancing the company’s core business areas of autonomous driving (Autopilot) and the AI humanoid Optimus. Musk is reported to have tried to dissuade Kovac from leaving Tesla until the end when he decided to resign. After the resignation was decided, Musk personally posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) stating, “Thank you for your contributions to Tesla over the years; it was an honor to work with you.”

Newly appointed Director Kovac is particularly regarded as a specialist in accelerating the pace of technology development and commercializing technologies that have reached the testing and validation stage so they can be deployed in real-world settings. For this reason, the industry views this appointment as an attempt by Hyundai Motor Group to speed up commercialization in fields such as autonomous driving and AI robots, where it is engaged in intense competition with the United States and China. While Tesla plans to deploy Optimus in its production plants in 2026, the commercialization of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas is scheduled for 2028.

On the 13th, Hyundai Motor Group also recruited Park Min-woo, Vice President of NVIDIA, as head (president) of the group’s Future Platform (APV) Division, aggressively bringing in AI experts from big tech companies.

A Hyundai Motor official said, “Director Kovac will also serve as a technology advisor to Hyundai Motor Group and will play a role in supporting the application of AI and robotics,” adding, “He is also expected to communicate closely with the new APV Division head, President Park.”

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