A Tesla vehicle charges at a Tesla Supercharger station on the Qualcomm campus in San Diego,California, U.S., May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc TSLA.O said the head of its autopilot software, Chris Lattner, left the company in less than six months since joining the electric carmaker.

“Chris just wasn’t the right fit for Tesla, and we’ve decided to make a change,” a Tesla spokeswoman told Reuters in an email on Tuesday.

"Turns out that Tesla isn't a good fit for me after all," Lattner, who worked at Apple Inc AAPL.O for more than a decade before joining Tesla in January, tweeted. "I'm interested to hear about interesting roles for a seasoned engineering leader!"

Tesla said it hired Andrej Karpathy as director of artificial intelligence and Tesla Vision team, the spokeswoman said.

Karpathy, who most recently worked as a research scientist at OpenAI, will directly report to Chief Executive Elon Musk.

Karpathy will work closely with Jim Keller, who now has overall responsibility for autopilot hardware and software, she added.

Electrek.co website earlier reported Lattner’s exit.