tesla Jim Keller, vice president of autopilot and low-voltage hardware, is leaving the company, Electrek first reported.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Tesla said it appreciated "his contributions to Tesla and wishes the best," a spokesman said.
"Tesla is committed to developing the world's most advanced chips, and we plan to significantly increase our investment in this area while building on the world-class leadership team we already have," the spokesperson said.
Keller's plan was to go to Intel, where he would become senior vice president of developing microprocessors. His first day will be April 30, according to Intel.
“I had a great experience working at Tesla, learned a lot, and look forward to all the great technology coming from Tesla in the future. My lifelong passion has been developing the best silicon products in the world,” Keller said at stated in an Intel press release. “The world will be very different over the next decade as computing evolves. I’m excited to join the Intel team as they build the future of CPUs, GPUs, accelerators and other products for the data-centric computing era.”
At Tesla, Pete Bannon will serve as Keller's replacement. Bannon is a former Apple chip engineer who helped design Apple's A5-AP chip. Meanwhile, Tesla said the director of Tesla AI and Autopilot Vision will have "overall responsibility" for the Autopilot software.
Notably, Tesla's Autopilot software has been under scrutiny following a fatal accident in Mountain View last month. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are currently investigating the crash, which Tesla says involved Autopilot.
Zhang Yue 