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Tesla's former Optimus chief Milan Kovac joins Hyundai's Boston Dynamics, days after the new Atlas debut3 min

Tesla's former Optimus chief Milan Kovac joins Hyundai's Boston Dynamics, days after the new Atlas debut

Optimus ·

Milan Kovac, who led Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot programme until June 2025, has been appointed adviser and outside director at Boston Dynamics. The move strengthens one of Optimus's most direct rivals just after Atlas was shown at CES 2026.

Hyundai Motor Group has appointed Milan Kovac, the former head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot programme, as a group adviser and outside director of Boston Dynamics, its wholly owned robotics company. Korean outlet KED Global reported the appointment on January 16. It comes only days after Boston Dynamics showed its next-generation Atlas humanoid at CES 2026 in Las Vegas.

Who is Milan Kovac?

Kovac, a Belgian engineer, spent close to a decade at Tesla. His career there, according to KED Global and Electrek:

  • 2016: joined Tesla after working at image-sensor company SoftKinetic.
  • 2019 to 2022: oversaw development of the second-generation Autopilot, built on Tesla's own chips and camera-based vision.
  • Optimus: led factory pilot operations for the robot and was promoted to vice president in 2024.
  • 2025: was promoted to senior vice president by Elon Musk, only months before leaving the company in June 2025.

His exit hit the programme hard. Electrek reported at the time that it disrupted Optimus and contributed to a production delay because of an unexpected redesign.

What Boston Dynamics is building

Boston Dynamics is best known for its four-legged Spot robot and the Stretch warehouse robot, and Hyundai is now pushing to commercialise the humanoid Atlas as well. According to Electrek:

  • Production of the new electric Atlas has started, and Boston Dynamics is working with Google DeepMind on its AI.
  • All Atlas production this year goes to Hyundai, with deliveries to other customers from 2027.
  • Hyundai plans to deploy tens of thousands of Atlas robots in its own factories.
  • A new robot factory, part of a $26 billion US investment, is planned to build up to 30,000 robots a year.

Kovac is not the only recent hire with Tesla roots. Earlier the same week, Hyundai named Park Minwoo, a former Tesla and Nvidia engineer, to lead its Advanced Vehicle Platform division and software unit 42dot.

The Tesla context

Optimus is central to Tesla's long-term story. Musk has said Optimus could become Tesla's biggest product, and its prospects are a big part of how many investors value the company. But its timelines are ambitious. In January 2025, Musk said Tesla aimed to build about 10,000 Optimus robots that year. Tesla has not said how many it actually built, and there has been no sign of anything close to that number.

Talent has also been leaving. Besides Kovac, Optimus AI lead Ashish Kumar left for Meta in September 2025. Electrek, a frequent Tesla critic, argued that there is little public evidence that Tesla leads its competitors in humanoid robots, and pointed out that some earlier Optimus demos were remotely operated by humans without Tesla making that clear.

Why it matters

Humanoid robotics is a small field with few people who have taken a robot from prototype towards factory production. Kovac knows how Tesla approached exactly that problem, from its camera-first AI to its pilot lines. His role at Boston Dynamics is advisory rather than operational, but it gives Hyundai direct access to that experience at the moment Atlas moves into production.

It also sharpens the comparison between the two programmes. Both are owned by carmakers, both want to put humanoids in their own plants first, and both plan to sell to outside customers later. Hyundai has a concrete delivery schedule for Atlas. Tesla has yet to give one for Optimus.

What to watch next

For Tesla, the next milestones are the unveiling of the third-generation Optimus and the start of real volume production. Tesla's fourth-quarter results later this month should bring an update. For Boston Dynamics, the test is whether Atlas can do real work on Hyundai's lines during 2026.

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