Tesla Optimus Scores Major Win as Apple AI Engineer Defects to Humanoid Team

We’ve been tracking Tesla’s talent struggles all year, and this weekend’s announcement flips the script entirely. Yilun Chen, who spent nearly four years building Apple’s robotics and autonomous systems capabilities, has joined Tesla’s Optimus AI team, calling humanoid robots “the ultimate dream of our generation.”

The move, announced on X on November 30, has already attracted 2 million views, 9,000 likes, and 607 reposts. Chen’s post offers a rare insider glimpse into Tesla’s secretive Optimus lab, and his decision to leave Apple speaks volumes about where the humanoid robot race is heading.

Chen’s Apple Background: From Project Titan to Humanoid Robotics

Chen’s resume reads like a roadmap of cutting-edge AI development. At Apple, he worked on embodied AI research covering robotics foundation models, simulation systems, visual language architectures, dexterous manipulation, and humanoid whole body control.

Before the robotics role, Chen spent three years as a machine learning engineer in Apple’s secretive “Special Projects Group,” where he focused on photorealistic scene generation and agent behavior modeling for autonomous systems. That group was responsible for Project Titan, Apple’s now-canceled autonomous car project that the company shuttered in February 2024 after a decade and over $1 billion per year in spending.

Chen also holds previous experience at Uber, where he was part of the core team that developed the company’s first GPU-based path planning system for self-driving cars, and at Lyft, working on autonomous vehicle planning systems.

What Chen Said About Tesla’s Optimus Lab

Chen’s post provides rare validation of Tesla’s robotics operation from someone who has seen the inside of both Apple and Tesla’s AI labs.

“I was totally blown away by the scale and sophistication of the Optimus lab and deep dedication of people when I got to visit the office,” Chen wrote. “My first week was already so much fun and exciting: flat team structure, spontaneous deep technical discussions, direct communications across levels, hardcore building and crazy ideas with super fast iterations.”

He added: “You can feel the energy to change the world here. I really like it so far.”

That description of Tesla’s culture, emphasizing flat hierarchy, rapid iteration, and direct communication, stands in contrast to Apple’s famously siloed and secretive organizational structure.

The Talent War Context: Why This Hire Matters

This hire comes at a critical moment for Tesla’s robotics ambitions. The company has experienced significant talent losses in recent months.

In September 2025, Ashish Kumar, who led Tesla’s Optimus AI team for over two years, announced he was leaving for Meta as a research scientist. Kumar had been instrumental in shifting Optimus toward reinforcement learning and video-based training methods.

“Decided to leave Tesla. It’s been an incredible ride leading the Optimus AI team,” Kumar wrote at the time. “We went all-in on scalable methods, swapping the classical stack with reinforcement learning and scaling dexterity by learning from videos.”

Notably, Kumar said financial considerations were not a factor, and that Tesla’s compensation was “significantly larger” than Meta’s offer.

Earlier, in June 2025, Milan Kovac, the Vice President who oversaw the entire Optimus program, also departed. Leadership of Optimus then transitioned to Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI Software, who previously led Autopilot and Full Self-Driving development.

Additionally, a startup called Sunday Robotics recently emerged from stealth with $35 million in funding after effectively poaching a “full stack” of robotic and AI engineers from Tesla, including senior engineering leadership and a talent recruiter from the Optimus and Robotaxi programs.

Chen’s hire shows Tesla can still attract top-tier talent from major tech companies, even as competitors aggressively recruit from its ranks.

Apple’s Robotics Ambitions: Years Behind Tesla

Chen’s departure from Apple is also notable given the iPhone maker’s own robotics ambitions. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and multiple reports, Apple is exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robots for a “future smart home ecosystem” under a project reportedly codenamed ARMOR.

However, Apple’s robotics work remains in the “early proof-of-concept” stage, with mass production not expected until 2028 or later, according to Kuo.

Chen teased unreleased Apple projects in his departure post: “Though many of them are not public yet (wait for the surprise!), I feel greatly honored to experience, learn and grow from IC to tech lead, from engineering to research, from larger engineering teams to early product incubation and prototyping.”

The timeline gap is significant. Tesla is already producing Optimus units at its Fremont pilot line, has started construction on a massive production facility at Gigafactory Texas, and plans to scale to 1 million units annually by late 2026. Optimus V3 is expected to debut in early 2026.

Apple, by contrast, appears to be at least 2-3 years behind on any robotics product roadmap.

Tesla’s Optimus Production Roadmap

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has positioned Optimus as central to the company’s future, claiming it could eventually represent 80% of Tesla’s total valuation. Here’s the current production timeline:

Musk has said the company holds weekly “Friday night Optimus” sessions to refine the robot’s design and solve manufacturing challenges. During Tesla’s Q3 earnings call, Musk described Optimus V3 as “so real that you’ll need to poke it to believe it’s an actual robot.”

EVXL’s Take

Chen’s move to Tesla represents a significant vote of confidence in the Optimus program from someone who has worked at the highest levels of both Apple’s autonomous vehicle and robotics divisions. His praise for Tesla’s “flat team structure” and “super fast iterations” suggests he sees a meaningful difference in how the two companies approach cutting-edge AI development.

The timing is also telling. Chen could have waited to see if Apple’s robotics ambitions would materialize, but instead chose to join a program that, despite leadership turnover and production delays, is actively building and deploying humanoid robots.

This pattern mirrors what we’ve observed across the EV industry, where companies moving from concept to production attract talent away from those still in the research phase. We saw similar dynamics play out when Tesla’s robotics vision transformed from concept to concrete manufacturing investment.

The humanoid robot race is intensifying, with Chinese competitors like Unitree making aggressive moves and Western startups like Figure AI attracting significant investment. Tesla’s ability to attract talent like Chen, even while losing engineers to Meta and well-funded startups, suggests the Optimus program retains its allure for those who want to build robots at scale rather than research them in labs.

Whether Musk’s ambitious production targets prove realistic remains to be seen. But Chen’s decision to leave Apple’s secretive robotics efforts for Tesla’s more visible, aggressive approach is itself a data point worth watching.

What do you think about Tesla’s ability to attract top AI talent despite recent departures? Share your thoughts in the comments below.