tech

Rani Molla6/6/25

Tesla’s head of Optimus robots leaves as the company stakes its future on Optimus robots

The head of engineering for Tesla’s Optimus AI humanoid robot program, Milan Kovac, is departing the company effective immediately, Bloomberg reports.

Tesla, of course, has had a very bad year, and the current public skirmish between CEO Elon Musk and Donald Trump could cause massive damage. The recent bright spots for the stock have been its impending robotaxi launch and its potential for producing legions of autonomous robots. Indeed, Musk has staked the fate of the company on those two technologies.

“The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large scale and large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots,” Musk said on the company’s latest earnings call.

It’s probably not a good time for an abrupt leadership exit in those departments. Bloomberg reports that the head of Tesla’s Autopilot teams, Ashok Elluswamy, will take over responsibility for Optimus.

Tesla’s Leader of Optimus Humanoid Robot Program Leaves Company

Tesla’s Leader of Optimus Humanoid Robot Program Leaves Company

“The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large scale and large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots,” Musk said on the company’s latest earnings call.

It’s probably not a good time for an abrupt leadership exit in those departments. Bloomberg reports that the head of Tesla’s Autopilot teams, Ashok Elluswamy, will take over responsibility for Optimus.

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OpenAI’s hot Sora video app is a copyright lawsuit waiting to happen

OpenAI has generated some serious buzz surrounding its new Sora video generation app. The app is currently No. 3 on the iOS free app leaderboards, even though it’s invitation-only for the time being.

But users have been flooding social media with videos generated by Sora, and in addition to a “Skibidi Toilet” Sam Altman and the OpenAI CEO dressed as a Nazi, the app is able to create videos featuring iconic characters from Disney, Nintendo, and Paramount Skydance.

On the system card for the Sora 2 AI model (which powers the Sora app), OpenAI says it was trained on things found on the internet:

“Sora 2 was trained on diverse datasets, including information that is publicly available on the internet, information that we partner with third parties to access, and information that our users or human trainers and researchers provide or generate.”

This seems like an invitation for a big copyright lawsuit, along the lines of the one Disney, Dreamworks, and NBCUniversal recently filed against AI image generator Midjourney.

But OpenAI is trying to flip the responsibility of protecting copyrighted material to the intellectual property owners themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is allowing copyrighted material in Sora by default, unless copyright holders opt out of the service.

The courts will have to decide if this novel approach to intellectual copyright law works, but government regulators may not be that big of a problem, as Altman has made sure OpenAI is in the good graces of the Trump administration. If OpenAI has to pay up to copyright holders after a lawsuit, what’s a few billion dollars here or there when you’re raising so much capital?

OpenAI’s AI video app stirs copyright questions, pumping out videos of Mario and Pikachu

OpenAI’s AI video app stirs copyright questions, pumping out videos of Mario and Pikachu

On the system card for the Sora 2 AI model (which powers the Sora app), OpenAI says it was trained on things found on the internet:

“Sora 2 was trained on diverse datasets, including information that is publicly available on the internet, information that we partner with third parties to access, and information that our users or human trainers and researchers provide or generate.”

This seems like an invitation for a big copyright lawsuit, along the lines of the one Disney, Dreamworks, and NBCUniversal recently filed against AI image generator Midjourney.

But OpenAI is trying to flip the responsibility of protecting copyrighted material to the intellectual property owners themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is allowing copyrighted material in Sora by default, unless copyright holders opt out of the service.

The courts will have to decide if this novel approach to intellectual copyright law works, but government regulators may not be that big of a problem, as Altman has made sure OpenAI is in the good graces of the Trump administration. If OpenAI has to pay up to copyright holders after a lawsuit, what’s a few billion dollars here or there when you’re raising so much capital?

Tesla delivered way more Teslas than it produced last quarter

That’s helping it claw its way through its surplus.

GOP Lawmakers In D.C. Poised To Vote On Waivers That Allow California To Set Own Emissions Standards

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Tension emerges between Meta’s AI teams

Discontent between Meta’s AI research teams is growing, according to a report by The Information, at a critical time for Meta’s effort to get back into the AI race.

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OpenAI beats SpaceX as most valuable private company, at $500 billion valuation

It also reached that valuation very quickly.

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Electric quarter

Tesla deliveries surge to quarterly record on last gasp of EV tax credit

Tesla reported its highly anticipated third-quarter delivery numbers.

California Is Ending The Clean Air Vehicle Decal Allowing Electric Vehicle Drivers To Go Solo In Carpool Lane

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