Tesla hires Head of Autonomy from GM’s failed self-driving startup

Tesla has hired Henry Kuang, the former ‘Head of Autonomy’ at GM’s failed self-driving startup, Cruise.

The automaker has had difficulties with turnover in its Autopilot and self-driving division.

Tesla has lost many leaders over the years and the departures have ramped up as of late. Here’s a list of Tesla leaders related to Autopilot and self-driving efforts who have left the company:

Meanwhile, there haven’t been many high-profile hires as Tesla prefers to hire younger, more junior engineers and promote within.

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Amidst brand damage in recent years, Tesla has also faced more difficulties securing top hires. A recent leaked recording from a Tesla training session confirmed that the automaker has had a culture problem within its workforce.

However, Electrek has found a rare new executive-level hire in Tesla’s self-driving division.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Henry Kuang has been hired by Tesla as “Director of AI and Deep Learning for Autonomous Driving.”

Kuang was a long-time Facebook engineer who joined Cruise in 2020 to lead the perception team and later became Senior Director in charge of Autonomy:

Cruise was founded in 2013 to develop self-driving technology. It was acquired by GM in 2016. It operated its own self-driving fleet independently of GM, but it also contributed to the development of the automaker’s ADAS system.

A series of accidents and failures in 2023 led the company to withdraw its fleet of over 100 self-driving vehicles from the road.

They have tried to bring back their autonomous ride-hailing service in California, but GM announced that it would stop funding the company in December and commenced a restructuring to entirely discontinue autonomous fleet operations and fold some of Cruise into GM’s ADAS operations for consumer vehicles.

Kuang has reportedly exited Cruise in 2024 and now joined Tesla last month, according to an update on his LInkedIn profile.