Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed how a single social media post helped him hire Ashok Elluswamy – now the head of Tesla’s Autopilot and AI division, and several others who shaped the electric vehicle (EV) company’s artificial intelligence journey. The world’s richest man quoted an X post that resurfaced his 2015 tweet, where he announced that Tesla was “ramping up the Autopilot software team” to achieve “generalized full autonomy.” The tweet also included a direct call for applications via an email address.
An X user recently reshared Musk’s old post, writing, “The tweet Ashok responded to that got him hired at Tesla.” Musk replied to the post, confirming the story and adding more context on how Tesla built its AI team from scratch. He said
“A tweet/post is how I initiated the dozen or so startups that constitute Tesla. Tesla has made very few acquisitions. Our growth is ~90% organic. We didn’t ‘play to our core strengths’; we created core strengths from nothing.”
The resurfaced tweet serves as a reminder of how Tesla’s key hires and innovations often trace back to Musk’s unconventional recruiting style — leveraging social media to reach talent directly.
Read Elon Musk’s tweet that got Ashok Elluswamy hired
Here’s the full text of Musk’s tweet he shared in 2015:
“Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact autopilot@teslamotors.com.”
Who is Ashok Elluswamy
Ashok Elluswamy is the director of Autopilot software at Tesla and the first person hired for the company’s AI team. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, the Indian-origin engineer joined Tesla in 2015 after responding to Musk’s public call for engineers. Before that, he worked at WABCO Vehicle Control Systems and Volkswagen.
Under his leadership, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems have evolved into core components of the company’s long-term vision for autonomous mobility. Musk has often credited Elluswamy and his team for driving Tesla’s progress toward full autonomy.
An X user recently reshared Musk’s old post, writing, “The tweet Ashok responded to that got him hired at Tesla.” Musk replied to the post, confirming the story and adding more context on how Tesla built its AI team from scratch. He said
“A tweet/post is how I initiated the dozen or so startups that constitute Tesla. Tesla has made very few acquisitions. Our growth is ~90% organic. We didn’t ‘play to our core strengths’; we created core strengths from nothing.”
The resurfaced tweet serves as a reminder of how Tesla’s key hires and innovations often trace back to Musk’s unconventional recruiting style — leveraging social media to reach talent directly.
Read Elon Musk’s tweet that got Ashok Elluswamy hired
Here’s the full text of Musk’s tweet he shared in 2015:
“Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact autopilot@teslamotors.com.”
Who is Ashok Elluswamy
Ashok Elluswamy is the director of Autopilot software at Tesla and the first person hired for the company’s AI team. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, the Indian-origin engineer joined Tesla in 2015 after responding to Musk’s public call for engineers. Before that, he worked at WABCO Vehicle Control Systems and Volkswagen.
Under his leadership, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems have evolved into core components of the company’s long-term vision for autonomous mobility. Musk has often credited Elluswamy and his team for driving Tesla’s progress toward full autonomy.
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