Andrej Karpathy was Tesla’s AI lead well before AI was everywhere all the time. At the very early part of the AI hype cycle, he was the only AI guy many people knew. He led Tesla’s efforts toward Full Self Driving (FSD) for years, and it’s still not exactly clear why he left “right before” that was supposed to be achieved, but the obvious challenges of actually getting paid robotaxis on the road still seem like the most plausible explanation to me. I mean, honestly, why would you stop working on something you’d spent years on if you saw the light at the end of the tunnel coming around the corner? Of course, Karpathy left Tesla in July 2022, four years ago! He claimed he was confident the approach they had been pursuing would lead to full self-driving capability, and Tesla fans lapped it up, agreeing it was a clear endorsement that things were on the right track. If someone said back then that it would take four years to get to where Tesla is today, and that people who bought FSD still wouldn’t be able to use it without paying attention all the time, you’d be roasted for being a Tesla/Elon Musk hater and an idiot. It was actually a year and a half or so before Karpathy’s exit that Elon Musk stopped following us (and frequently reposting or liking our content) on Twitter/X — presumably because we published some articles skeptical about their approach and I didn’t take them down or fire the author when Elon Musk messaged me about them. And how many times has Tesla started over in its software approach to FSD since then? Anyway, recall that Karpathy was also a founding member of OpenAI, the AI company Elon Musk just lost to in court. He also then rejoined OpenAI in 2023 after leaving Tesla. Nonetheless, it appears that through everything that has gone on, Karpathy has stayed on good terms with Elon Musk, good enough to not get torched and trashed on X at least — and to even be complimented from time to time. But one thing stood out to me a while back (I forget how long back it was now — maybe a few months ago, maybe a year or more). Musk mentioned on X that Tesla would be happy to have Karpathy back if he wanted to come work on AI there again. Hmm…. If the door was so obviously still open to Karpathy, and Karpathy is still a notable leader in the field, and Tesla and/or xAI/SpaceX are leaders in AI development, why would Karpathy not return? Now we have news that Karpathy is joining Anthropic, the creator of Claude. “Personal update: I’ve joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time,” he wrote on X. Who knows where any of this leads, but I think it’s safe to say Tesla and xAI/SpaceX are not the biggest draws in the AI industry. Featured image by Sk aman khan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons