Tesla's Head of Autopilot Leaves, Ex-Apple Exec to Succeed

Tesla Inc. said on Thursday Jim Keller, the head of its low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment, is leaving the automaker to focus on microprocessor engineering with another company.

Pete Bannon, who has been with Tesla (TSLA) for over two years and has previously overseen Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) A5 chip develop through to the A9 chip, will succeed Keller, a Tesla spokeswoman told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Keller will be joining Intel Corp. (INTC), the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. Tesla declined to comment on this, while Intel was not immediately available for comment on the WSJ report.

Separately, Andrej Karpathy, Tesla's director of AI and Autopilot vision, will now have overall responsibility for all Autopilot software within the company, the spokeswoman said.

Earlier this month, Tesla withdrew as a formal party to the National Transportation Safety Board's probe into a fatal March 23 crash in California in which the semi-autonomous "Autopilot" driving system was in use, before the board revoked its status.

Driver Walter Huang's death in the crash and vehicle fire in a Tesla Model X near Mountain View, California, prompted investigations by the NTSB and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The NTSB has three pending probes into Tesla crashes.