The Talent Wars: Tesla’s Former Optimus Head Milan Kovac Joins Boston Dynamics

In a move that has sent ripples through the industry, Hyundai Motor Group has officially appointed Milan Kovac, the former head of Tesla’s Optimus program, as a group adviser and outside director for Boston Dynamics.

The appointment was met with immediate enthusiasm from within the Waltham-based firm. Mario Bollini, Atlas Product Management Lead at Boston Dynamics, took to X to welcome the new hire, stating, "Excited to have @milankovac on the team! We’re going to build amazing things together."

From the "Agony" of Tesla to the "Alien" of Atlas

Kovac’s move comes at a critical juncture for both companies. Just last week, Elon Musk warned that the production ramp for Optimus would be “agonizingly slow” due to the immense complexity of building a humanoid from scratch. Meanwhile, Boston Dynamics used CES 2026 to unveil the production-ready version of its all-electric Atlas, moving decisively away from laboratory prototypes toward a machine built for "automotive volumes".

For Kovac, the transition marks the definitive end of a decade-long tenure at Tesla, where he was a foundational figure in the development of both Autopilot and the first generations of Optimus. His departure in June 2025—cited as a personal move to be closer to family—was likely a major blow to Tesla’s timeline, leading to the promotion of Ashok Elluswamy to lead the program.

The Strategy of Scale

Kovac’s new role is less about tinkering with hardware and more about the high-level strategy of commercialization. Hyundai noted that Kovac will contribute to strategic discussions regarding the mid- to long-term deployment of the group’s entire robotics portfolio, including Spot, Stretch, and the humanoid Atlas.

This aligns with Boston Dynamics’ stated goal of entering “Phase Two” of the humanoid mission: finding product-market fit and achieving 99.9% uptime in real-world environments. With Hyundai targeting a production capacity of 30,000 units per year by 2028, Kovac’s experience in navigating Tesla’s notorious manufacturing ramping is an invaluable asset.

A Growing "Brain Drain" at Tesla?

Industry analysts have described the move as a "devastating indictment" of Tesla’s current trajectory. Kovac is not the only high-level talent to depart the EV giant recently. A significant cohort of senior engineering leaders has recently migrated to the seed-stage startup Sunday Robotics, seeking the "zero-to-one" engineering challenges that defined the early days of FSD.

The Convergence of Physical AI

Following the hire of former CTO Aaron Saunders, DeepMind has been integrating its Gemini Robotics models with the Atlas platform. Kovac’s expertise in vision-based, end-to-end learning—a strategy he championed at Tesla—is expected to accelerate the development of the "Physical AI" required to make Atlas a truly autonomous factory worker.