Swift and Xcode Head Chris Lattner Leaving Apple for Tesla This Month [Updated]
Chris Lattner, director of Apple's Developer Tools group, has announced he will be leaving the company later this month to "pursue an opportunity in another space." Lattner was responsible for leading the teams behind Xcode, Swift, and some other development-related tools and compilers at Apple.
In a message posted to the Swift mailing list, shared by MacStories, Lattner said Ted Kremenek, currently Senior Manager of Languages and Runtimes at Apple, will be taking over as "Project Lead" for the Swift programming language, managing the "administrative and leadership responsibility" for Swift.org.
This recognizes the incredible effort he has already been putting into the project, and reflects a decision I’ve made to leave Apple later this month to pursue an opportunity in another space. This decision wasn't made lightly, and I want you all to know that I’m still completely committed to Swift. I plan to remain an active member of the Swift Core Team, as well as a contributor to the swift-evolution mailing list.
Lattner said he does not expect his resignation to impact day-to-day operations of the Swift team in any significant way. He also noted Apple's development of Swift 4 will continue under Kremenek. Apple previously said it will shift its focus to Swift 4 after Swift 3.1 is released over the coming months.
Latter is best known as the main author of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project, a collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies. He started development of Swift in 2010, and the open source programming language was introduced for Apple software platforms at WWDC 2014.
Update: Chris Lattner is leaving Apple for Tesla, where he will fill the position of Vice President of Autopilot Software and lead Tesla's autopilot engineering team.
Popular Stories
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve).
The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements.
While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way.
By the time the ...
Apple's Terminal app is getting a visual refresh in macOS Tahoe, and it's the first notable design update since the command-line tool debuted.
The updated Terminal will support 24-bit color and Powerline fonts, according to Apple's State of the Platforms presentation at WWDC25. The app will also adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic with redesigned themes that align with macOS 26's broader...
Apple this week revealed that iOS 26 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer.
That means that iOS 18 is the end of the road for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, which were all released in 2018. However, those devices will continue to receive security updates for at least a few more years.
iOS 26 is compatible with the following iPhone models:
iPhone 16e
iPhone...
With iOS 26, Apple has made some additions to the iPhone Lock Screen that aim to make it more customizable than ever.
Of course, things can always change before the software makes its way to the general iPhone-owning public, but here are five new things iOS 26 can do on the Lock Screen as of the current developer beta.
Widgets Top or Bottom
In iOS 18, the row of widgets on your Lock...
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 updates to public beta testers, with the betas coming just a few days after Apple provided the betas to developers.
Testers who have signed up for beta updates through Apple's beta site can download iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.
When the...
