Tesla’s Lead of Optimus AI, Ashish Kumar, is departing the company, and people sure are confused about it.

Kumar, who has been with Tesla for just over two years, made his announcement on X, revealing he was taking a role at Meta as a Research Scientist.

He said:

“Decided to leave Tesla. It’s been an incredible ride leading the Optimus AI team. We went all-in on scalable methods — swapping the classical stack with reinforcement learning & scaling dexterity by learning from videos. AI is the most significant bit to unlock humanoids.”

Decided to leave Tesla.
It’s been an incredible ride leading the Optimus AI team. We went all-in on scalable methods — swapping the classical stack with reinforcement learning & scaling dexterity by learning from videos.

AI is the most significant bit to unlock humanoids.

— Ashish (@ashishkr9311) September 19, 2025

Tesla fans were baffled by Kumar’s decision, immediately questioning his choice, with many wondering why he’d leave Elon Musk for Mark Zuckerberg.

Some said the choice had to be financially motivated, but Kumar said it was not, and if money were the driving factor, he would have stayed at Tesla:

Financial upside at Tesla was significantly larger. Tesla is known to compensate pretty well, way before Zuck made it cool.
If I wanted to optimize for money, I would have stayed at Tesla.

— Ashish (@ashishkr9311) September 19, 2025

Others were grateful for Kumar’s contributions to the company and were very respectful regarding his decision:

All the best and thank you for your contributions to Tesla.
— Ale𝕏andra Merz 🇺🇲 (@TeslaBoomerMama) September 19, 2025

Dude, sorry for all the negative comments your getting but thank you for your contributions to Tesla and best of luck to you in your new position
— William F (@retat50) September 19, 2025

It’s possible that Kumar chose to leave Tesla for more reasons than one, and financial reasons do not appear to be the issue, as he admitted. However, it could be a better work-life balance at Meta, or perhaps there is an internal project that simply interests him more.

Tesla will be okay, and Optimus will continue to improve with a new Lead in that position. We wish Ashish the best of luck in his new role, and we are thankful for what he contributed to the Optimus program.

Elon Musk is urging Tesla shareholders to take part in the company’s upcoming annual meeting, calling the vote critical not just for the automaker but potentially for the world. 

“This shareholder vote decides the future of Tesla and may affect the future of the world,” Musk posted on X, emphasizing the importance of proposals that will be voted on in the upcoming meeting on November 6, 2025.

A pivotal inflection point

In a message from its official account, Tesla described itself as being at “a critical inflection point” as it prepares for its annual meeting. Shareholders will soon receive voting instructions, with the company asking investors to back the Board’s recommendations on all proposals. The post also referenced Tesla’s Master Plan Part IV, which outlines ambitious growth targets across vehicles, energy, and artificial intelligence.

“Tesla is at a critical inflection point. We need your vote ahead of our 2025 Annual Meeting on November 6. Tesla shareholders, the owners of our company, will soon receive their control numbers and voting instructions from their brokers. This will enable you to vote. We are asking you to vote with the Board’s recommendations on *all* proposals,” Tesla wrote in its post.

The company also highlighted that it is currently on the brink of a “massive wave of transformational growth.” Tesla stressed that confidence in Musk’s leadership is central to this trajectory, as he is the CEO who could lead Tesla into its new, ambitious era.

Some Key proposals

Two proposals stand out in Tesla’s recommendations, as per the company’s VoteTesla.com website. The first seeks to amend and restate Elon Musk’s 2019 Equity Incentive Plan, creating a special reserve of nearly 208 million shares to give the board flexibility amid ongoing litigation surrounding Musk’s 2018 CEO Performance Award. It also calls for replenishing the general share reserve with 60 million additional shares, ensuring capacity for employee equity grants.

“Equity is the cornerstone of Tesla’s compensation philosophy. We believe we need a framework that allows us to honor the deal we made with Elon and the extraordinary value he created for Tesla shareholders under the 2018 CEO Performance Award. In addition, it is essential that we maintain sufficient equity reserves and maximum flexibility to attract, retain and motivate talent at Tesla,” Tesla wrote.

The second proposal is a new 2025 CEO Performance Award, a pay-for-performance framework that links Musk’s compensation to reaching ambitious market cap and operational milestones. Under the plan, Musk would earn nothing unless Tesla achieves extraordinary results, potentially creating more than $7 trillion in shareholder value and pushing the company’s valuation to as high as $8.5 trillion. The company also asked shareholders to vote in favor of re-electing three directors: Ira Ehrenpreis, Joe Gebbia, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson.

Tesla Giga Berlin is running at full capacity, but labor relations remain strained, and for the strangest reasons possible. 

A report from German outlet Handelsblatt has noted that the IG Metall union has recently been taking issue with the company’s bonus system, gifts for employees, and even health bars that were distributed to Giga Berlin workers.

Bonuses and symbolic disputes

IG Metall has long clashed with Tesla management over workplace policies, including disputes about home visits to employees on sick leave. The latest disagreements were focused on bonuses, with IG Metall reportedly arguing that Tesla must give bonuses to all employees, not just those with perfect attendance. The union also argued that red Tesla socks with the “Giga” logo, which were distributed to all employees last year, were inadequate, as noted in a CarUp report.

Even muesli bars have become a flashpoint for IG Metall after Tesla distributed them to staff when the factory reopened. Since the health bars were wrapped in blue packaging, the gesture was criticized by IG Metall, which is known as the red group in the works council. Union leaders reportedly saw the snack’s distribution as an insult, given the alignment of the “blue group” with management.

Production momentum

Despite these tensions, factory manager André Thierig has emphasized that operations remain strong. He told news agency DPA that “very good sales figures” have led Tesla to revise production plans upward for the third and fourth quarters. Giga Berlin, which employs around 11,000 people, continues to ramp its output of the Model Y and remains Tesla’s primary hub for European deliveries.

The recent complaints from IG Metall highlights the challenges that Tesla has been facing in balancing its rapid production growth with workplace relations in Germany, a country where labor unions wield significant influence. For now, production lines continue to run at full speed, though chances seem high that the IG Metall’s union’s complaints about Giga Berlin may continue to persist.