An Alphabet spokesperson has confirmed that Matt Schwall, Tesla’s former director of field performance engineering, has left the post for Alphabet’s self-driving car company, Waymo. In his post at Tesla, Schwall dealt directly with federal safety regulators. According to reports, Schwall’s departure is not believed to be related to the on-going issues surrounding the Model X crash that happened back in March and the subsequent friction between Tesla and the National Transportation Safety Board, after the former released a statement on the crash.
Losing Schwall comes just a day after it was announced that former Apple exec, Doug Field, senior VP of engineering at Tesla, would be taking a leave of absence. Tesla said that Field was “taking some time off to recharge and spend time with his family” and that he “has not left Tesla.”
It’s not clear what position Schwall will take up at Waymo other than tending to a “variety” of self-driving safety issues, according to a Wall Street Journal source.
At its I/O 2018 event last week, Google invited Waymo onto the stage to announce it would be bringing self-driving cars to Phoenix, Arizona, that would be accessible to the public via an app. Schwall could have arrived at Waymo in order to allow the company to further push this initiative into other cities around the U.S.
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