Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics has hired Milan Kovac, Tesla’s former senior vice president and head of the Optimus humanoid robot program, as a group adviser and outside director.
The move is a major blow to Tesla’s humanoid robot ambitions and a significant coup for Hyundai, which is clearly serious about dominating the nascent humanoid robot market.
Kovac, a Belgian national, joined Tesla in 2016 and played a key role in developing the company’s Autopilot driver-assistance system before being elevated to lead the entire Optimus humanoid robot program.
He left Tesla in June 2025 just months after being promoted to senior vice president by CEO Elon Musk – a departure that sent the Optimus program into disarray and forced a production delay due to an unexpected redesign.
According to a report from KED Global, Hyundai appointed Kovac as a group adviser and outside director for Boston Dynamics, its robotics subsidiary, on Friday.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Tesla
The announcement comes just days after Boston Dynamics unveiled its next-generation Atlas humanoid robot at CES 2026, where it put on an absolute masterclass that left Elon Musk noticeably silent.
While Tesla’s Optimus robots have primarily been demonstrated under human teleoperation, a fact Tesla wasn’t exactly forthcoming about, the new electric Atlas was shown operating autonomously inside Hyundai’s actual factories.
Kovac brings nearly a decade of experience at Tesla, including overseeing the development of Tesla’s second-generation Autopilot system from 2019 to 2022 and leading factory pilot operations for Optimus before his promotion to vice president in 2024.
This isn’t the first high-profile hire Hyundai has made this month. On Tuesday, the Korean automaker appointed Park Minwoo, a former Tesla and Nvidia engineer, to lead its Advanced Vehicle Platform division and its mobility software unit 42dot.
Electrek’s Take
This is brutal for Tesla and incredibly telling about the state of the Optimus program.
When Kovac left Tesla last summer, we reported that the Optimus program was “in shambles”, and his departure to a direct competitor confirms just how troubled things were internally.
Think about it: Kovac would have received sweet stock option packages when he was elevated to SVP. He would have made a fortune if he had been able to deliver on Musk’s goals of producing thousands of Optimus robots. Yet he walked away and is now helping Hyundai compete directly against his former employer.
Our stance has always been clear:
- There’s no evidence that Tesla has any lead whatsoever over the competition in the humanoid robot space.
- Musk’s production goals for Optimus have consistently missed the mark.
- Tesla has been losing key Optimus talent, including AI team lead Ashish Kumar who left for Meta.
Top comment by MJE
I think you are right on the 3. points you make but I would add a forth I think as critical.
4) Tesla has been unable to articulate EXACTLY what the first Optimus robots will actually do for the average consumer ie why would I buy one? Will they: mow my lawn, drive my tractor, pack my dishwasher, clean my toilet, vacuum my house, weed my garden? What exactly will they do for me?
Meanwhile, Boston Dynamics, backed by Hyundai’s manufacturing expertise and now integrated with Google DeepMind, has already started production of the new Atlas. All capacity is going to Hyundai this year, with shipments to other customers starting in 2027.
Hyundai is planning to deploy tens of thousands of Atlas robots into its manufacturing facilities, with a new robotics factory capable of producing 30,000 robots per year as part of its $26 billion US investment.
The fact that they’re now poaching Tesla’s top humanoid robot talent? That’s not just a vote of confidence in their own program, it’s a devastating indictment of Tesla’s.
Musk can claim that Optimus will justify Tesla’s insane valuation and become the most valuable product in the world all he wants. But when the guy who was supposed to make that happen leaves to work for your competitor, it tells you a lot.
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