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Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday, June 9, expressed gratitude towards Indian-origin engineer Ashok Elluswamy, who was the first recruit of Tesla’s Autopilot team, saying that without him, the company wouldn’t be where it is today.
“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,” the Tesla CEO posted on X.
This comes after Elluswamy, in his detailed note, said that 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,” part of Elluswamy’s note added.
Later, the tech billionaire quoted Elluswamy’s post on X and thanked him. “Btw, I never suggested that he say anything and I had no idea he wrote this until I saw it 10 minutes ago,” Musk’s tweet read.
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… https://t.co/7eBfzu0Nci
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2024
Elluswamy, in his note, shared an instance that goes back to 2014, when “autopilot started on a ridiculously tiny computer”.
“Back in 2014, Autopilot started on a ridiculously tiny computer that only had about 384 KB of memory and puny compute (didn’t even have native floating point arithmetic). He asked the engineering team to implement lane keeping, lane changing, longitudinal control for vehicles, curvature, etc,” the engineer wrote.
“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,” he added.
Praising Elon Musk, he said the entrepreneur is critical for Tesla’s success in the field of artificial intelligence.
“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,” Elluswamy wrote.
