Elon Musk lauds Indian-origin engineer Ashok Elluswamy- the person behind Tesla's Autopilot innovations

CEO Tesla Elon Musk praised Indian-origin engineer Ashok Elluswamy, the first person hired for Tesla's autopilot team. It all started when Elluswamy took to X to share how Musk "has been the key driver of AI and autonomy at Tesla." The engineer also added that Musk pushes the team to "achieve great things." Elon Musk praised Indian-origin engineer Ashok Elluswamy. (Reuters)

Elluswamy started his post by remembering how, in 2014, "Autopilot started on a ridiculously tiny computer that only had ~384 KB of memory and puny compute." He further added, "He 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." (Also Read: ‘Elon Musk never really wanted to be a CEO’: Tech billionaire reacts to X post)

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By 2016, "Tesla started doing all of the computer vision required for Autopilot in-house instead of depending on external vendors. Many people thought it was insane to bet the product on developing the vision system from scratch within a few months, which had taken other companies a decade or more. Yet, we achieved this target within eleven months."

Further, he detailed how Musk always pushed for strong AI software and powerful hardware.

Take a look at his post here:

Later, when Elon Musk came across this post, he reshared it and praised Elluswamy. He wrote, "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 autonomous 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!"

This post was Musk was shared on June 9. Since being posted, it has gained close to nine million views, and the numbers are only increasing. Many people also flocked to the comments section of the post and shared their reactions.

Here's how people reacted to the post:

An individual wrote, "You guys are doing incredible work."

A second added, "Elon, thank you for all that you are doing with Tesla. Not only will automation be a great boom to the economy, it'll bring independence to many people who are elderly and can no longer drive."

"Tesla will definitely succeed. Because a lot of employees like Ashok are with Elon," commented a third.