Former Apple Exec Joins Tesla as VP of Autopilot Software

Tesla and Apple have been known to poach each other’s employees, so it’s no surprise there’s a new swap-out to report. Chris Lattner, former senior director for Apple’s Developer Tools Department, has joined Tesla as chief of Autopilot Software.

Lattner worked at Apple for 11 years before coming to Tesla. Leading the development tools department, he was responsible for creating Swift, a programming language for building apps on Apple platforms. He was also integral to the development of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure that’s used in commercial projects and academic research.

“We are very excited that Chris is joining Tesla to lead our Autopilot engineering team and accelerate the future of autonomous driving,” Tesla said in a blog post this week. The automaker also thanked Jinnah Hosein, SpaceX vice president of Software, who served as the interim chief of Autopilot Software before Lattner’s appointment.

Lattner begins his new role just as Tesla is taking a huge step forward in advancing its Autopilot technology. The automaker is getting ready to roll out Autopilot Hardware 2, which supports fully autonomous driving. When the automaker announced the new hardware back in October 2016, it said it would bring out the new features slowly over time.