Pioneer Today Team
Elon Musk Praises Ashok Elluswamy for Pioneering Tesla’s AI and Autopilot Success
In a heartfelt acknowledgment, Elon Musk has credited Indian-origin Ashok Elluswamy for Tesla’s groundbreaking advancements in AI and autopilot technology. On Sunday, Musk expressed his gratitude towards Elluswamy, the first person hired for Tesla’s autopilot team, recognizing his pivotal role in the company’s technological achievements.
“Thanks Ashok! Ashok was the first person to join the Tesla AI/Autopilot team and ultimately rose to lead all AI/Autopilot software. Without him and our awesome team, we would just be another car company looking for an autonomy supplier that doesn’t exist. BTW, I never suggested that he say anything and I had no idea he wrote this until I saw it 10 minutes ago!” Musk wrote in a quote-tweet of Elluswamy’s note on X (formerly Twitter).
Elluswamy’s detailed note offered a deep dive into the journey of Tesla’s autopilot development. He highlighted Elon Musk’s relentless drive and vision, which often seemed impossible but eventually led to unprecedented technological breakthroughs. “Elon Musk has been the key driver of AI and autonomy at Tesla. He has always pushed us to achieve great things, even when such ideas were seemingly impossible at the time,” Elluswamy noted.
Reflecting on an early challenge from 2014, Elluswamy shared, “Back in 2014, Autopilot started on a ridiculously tiny computer that only had ~384 KB of memory and puny compute (didn’t even have native floating-point arithmetic). He [Elon Musk] asked the engineering team to implement lane keeping, lane changing, longitudinal control for vehicles, curvature, etc. Many, even in the team, thought that the request was crazy. Nonetheless, he never gave up and pushed the team to achieve this very difficult goal. In 2015, beyond all odds, Tesla shipped the world’s first Autopilot system. The second closest such product only came to market many years later.”
In 2016, Tesla took a bold step by developing its own computer vision system for Autopilot, a move that many deemed insane due to the short timeframe. Yet, the team achieved this milestone within eleven months, setting the foundation for a robust AI team at Tesla.
Elluswamy further lauded Musk’s insistence on developing powerful AI hardware, noting, “Tesla, which others thought was just a car company, was making custom silicon to run neural networks efficiently. This hardware that was originally designed in 2017, came to production in February 2019 and remains extremely competitive with hardware coming out to date.”
He also emphasized Musk’s visionary decision to rely on AI and vision systems over traditional sensor methods and high-definition maps. “By shipping millions of Teslas, the company has proved all of them wrong, who used to ridicule Elon Musk and the company,” Elluswamy wrote.
Reflecting on the journey, Elluswamy noted the initial skepticism from many “experts” in the field who doubted Tesla’s approach. However, Tesla’s success with supervised FSD (Full Self-Driving) has demonstrated the effectiveness of their AI software, capable of handling complex city driving scenarios without relying on radars and ultrasonics.
Elluswamy also credited Musk for kickstarting the development of humanoid robots at Tesla in 2021, well ahead of other AI advancements like ChatGPT.
Concluding his note, Elluswamy stated, “Elon is critical for Tesla’s success in AI. It is his combination of deep technical understanding, insane perseverance, and relentless hard work that have positioned Tesla to be a leader in real-world AI. Elon’s technical intuition to make these important decisions way before others see it is unmatched. If not for Elon’s ambition, Tesla might have dwindled to become just another car company. In the future, fully autonomous cars and useful household robots will be commonplace and the world will think that this was how it was always supposed to be. Until then, we need Elon Musk to push the frontier, because he sees it already.”
Back in 2021, Elon Musk had announced that Ashok Elluswamy was the first employee hired for Tesla’s Autopilot team, marking the beginning of a journey that would reshape the future of AI and autonomous driving.
