As Tesla Inc TSLA expands its full self-driving (FSD) software to Canada, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the head of AI at Tesla, Andrej Karpathy, is taking a four-month sabbatical, as shared by Electrek.
Toronto streetcars are not yet handled well by FSD. Btw, @karpathy is on a ~4 month sabbatical.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 27, 2022
Karpathy later sent his own tweet to comment about the break, saying he had been working hard at Tesla for five years and was taking time to rest and travel. In a followup tweet, he said he will continue to code while traveling to the U.K., Europe, Asia and eventually back to the Bay Area.
Some fans and investors are worried as, back in 2018, Doug Field, Tesla's former senior VP of engineering, took a multi-month long break. Even after assuring people he would be back, it was later revealed Field would not be returning to Tesla. Time will tell if this really is just a break, or if Karpathy will eventually announce his depature.
Photo courtesy of Tesla.