- Tesla's acting general counsel has joined the self-driving startup Luminar Technologies.
- Alan Prescott, who joined Tesla four years ago, will lead the startup's legal team.
- Intel executive Trey Campbell also joined the startup, It said.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Tesla's top lawyer, Alan Prescott, has left the electric car company to join Luminar Technologies, a startup that develops laser sensors for self-driving cars, the company announced Wednesday.
Prescott, who has served as Tesla's acting general counsel since 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile, will take on the role of general counsel at Luminar.
Prescott has worked on several projects involving autonomous vehicles in his career. Before his four-year stint at Tesla, he spent a decade at Ford and later served as senior counsel for Uber's autonomous driving unit.
Luminar Technologies listed on the Nasdaq stock market via a reverse merger in December, making its 26-year-old CEO, Austin Russell, into a billionaire virtually overnight.
The company's sensors have been used to create self-driving cars at companies like Volvo and Toyota. The technology relies on lidar, which uses pulses of light to create a 3D map of a car's environment, allowing it to determine the best course and avoid obstacles.
"He understands the challenges and nuances of operating in both the autonomous driving space and in the automotive industry more broadly, and we look forward to his insights and expertise as we continue to scale our business and accelerate the expansion of our product and commercial roadmaps," Russell said of Prescott in a press release.
The former Tesla executive's decision to move to Luminar is particularly interesting given Tesla CEO Elon Musk's philosophies about self-driving tech. In 2019, Musk called Luminar's technology, which is used by most other self-driving firms, "doomed." Instead of lidar, Tesla relies on a suite of external cameras and other sensors for its autonomous driving efforts.
Prescott is not the only major executive to join the startup.
An Intel executive is also coming aboard the tech company. Trey Campbell, formerly head of investor relations at the chipmaker, will lead Luminar's investor relations.