One of Tesla’s top self-driving car experts has defected to Google

Tesla has started doubling down on its development of self-driving car technology, which means the loss of one of its top experts in the field couldn’t have come at a worse time. To make matters even worse, the expert, Robert Rose, has joined up with Google, presumably to help the company develop its own self-driving cars. Rose spent more than five years at SpaceX, and worked with Tesla for six months during the launch of Autopilot and Autosteer, so his decision to switch to a different company is definitely a major loss for Tesla, and a major win for Google. 

The battle for the best talent to power self-driving cars is heating up. Google hired the former leader for Tesla’s Autopilot, Robert Rose, according to 9to5Google, citing Rose’s LinkedIn page. It is unclear exactly what role Rose has taken at Google; his new position is only listed as “software engineer” at Google Robotics. However, 9to5Google pointed out that the company has used a similar description for job listings involving its autonomous vehicle project. Rose worked with Tesla for six months during the launch of Autopilot and Autosteer, a team that reports directly to CEO Elon Musk. Rose also worked for at SpaceX for over five years, where he eventually served as director of flight software for the company. Rose left Tesla in October following the release of Autosteer and joined Google in November, per his LinkedIn profile. Poaching employees has become a way for Silicon Valley’s top companies to accelerate the development of their self-driving cars. The hiring of Rose comes only months after Google named John Krafcik as CEO of the company’s self-driving car project. Krafcik served as CEO of TrueCar, worked for Ford and ran Hyundai America.