Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, a US engineering company, recently revealed on Twitter that Indian-origin Ashok Elluswamy was the first person to be employed for the company’s autopilot team.
“Ashok was the first person recruited from my tweet saying that Tesla is starting an Autopilot team!” Musk tweeted in reply to a video in which he was being interviewed.
In the video, he can be heard talking about Elluswamy, indicating that the latter doesn't get much credit, but is actually the head of the autopilot engineering team.
"Ashoka is actually the head of autopilot engineering. Andrej is director of AI; People often give me too much credit and give Andrej too much credit. The Tesla Autopilot AI team is extremely talented. Some of the smartest people in the world," Musk goes on to say.
Before being an employee of Tesla, Elluswamy worked with Volkswagen Electronic Research Lab and WABCO Vehicle Control System.
According to his LinkedIn bio, he is a "robotics engineer with broad experience from computer vision and perception through planning and control. Inspired to solve meaningful and challenging real-world problems using state-of-the-art technology".
He has an undergraduate degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai.
Additionally, Elluswamy did his graduate program in Robotics System Development from Carnegie Mellon University.
Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, had tweeted during the first of December last year that his company was looking for "hardcore AI engineers who acre about solving problems that directly affect people's lives in a major way."
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