Tesla Exec Jim Keller Leaving For Intel
Presumably following a lucrative offer, Tesla exec Jim Keller — in charge of the company’s Autopilot software, low-voltage hardware, and infotainment teams — is reportedly leaving the company and now headed to Intel.
The reason given for the change was that Keller would now be focusing on microprocessor engineering at Intel (and was presumably offered a lot of money to do so).
Keller’s roles will be split somewhat amongst a few names already at Tesla — with Andrej Karpathy reportedly taking overall control of the Autopilot software team within the company (he’s already the director of AI and Autopilot vision) and Pete Bannon directly taking Keller’s role (Bannon joined Tesla around +2 years ago, after having overseen Apple’s A5 chip through A9 chip development).
Reuters provides a bit more information: “Keller will be joining Intel Corp, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. Tesla declined to comment on this, while Intel was not immediately available for comment on the WSJ report. … Earlier this month, Tesla withdrew as a formal party to the National Transportation Safety Board’s probe into a fatal March 23 crash in California in which the semi-autonomous ‘Autopilot’ driving system was in use, before the board revoked its status.”
It’s not clear of course whether or not Keller’s departure is any way connected with the recent fatality in California (whereby someone apparently used the “Autopilot” system in an unsafe way) or not. Nothing official will ever be revealed, of course, but the possibility of a connection is there. Alternately, Intel has very deep pockets and no doubt made Keller a substantial offer.
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