Tesla AI Chief Andrej Karpathy to Depart, Adding to Upheaval in Top Ranks (TSLA)

The top artificial-intelligence executive atTesla is planning to leave the company.

In a series of posts on Wednesday, the executive said he was leaving. Karpathy was the leader of the computer-vision teams that oversaw the technology at the core of Autopilot.

He said it was a pleasure to help the company towards its goals over the past five years. Autopilot graduated from lane keeping to city streets and I look forward to seeing the strong team continue that.

The move to scale back the group followed the departure of an executive. Hundreds of workers were laid off from the division and an office in San Mateo was closed, according to a report.

The executive said that he had no concrete plans for his next steps, but that he would revisit his long-term passion for technical work in artificial intelligence, open source and education.

The technology developed by Karpathy's group is critical to the functioning of the fully self- driving system. A key part of Musk's sales pitch is that technology. There is a $12,000 surcharge per vehicle for the full self-driving system.

Thanks for everything you have done for Tesla! It has been an honor working with you.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2022

Karpathy said in March that he would return to the company this month. Musk thanked him on the social networking site.

Musk said it was an honor to work with him.

The company's shares fell in late trading. Through the close, they have declined by more than 30 percent.

A year ago, Musk said that the responsibility for Autopilot was shared by two men.

Regulators are scrutinizing the autopilot system. Almost 200 crashes involving vehicles using autopilot have been reviewed by the US authorities.

A preliminary evaluation of how the system handles crash scenes with first-responder vehicles warrants further review. The inquiry was opened by NHTSA in 2020.