With a refocused Elon Musk at the helm, Tesla is making its move.
The 10th largest company in the world announced strong quarterly results after the bell Wednesday:
Record revenue: $28.1 billion, up 12 percent from a year ago
Record vehicle deliveries: 497,099 cars in Q3, up 7 percent from a year ago
Record free cash flow: $3.99 billion, up 46 percent from a year ago
Record cash pile: $41.6 billion in cash and investments, up 23.7 percent from a year ago
Despite those records, the stock dipped as Tesla missed estimates for $0.54 adjusted earnings per share, coming in at $0.50.
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After a volatile election season and Musk’s high-profile political ventures, Tesla’s cash engine accelerated once again.
The company now has more capital than ever ready to deploy for its pursuits in AI, robotics and energy storage.
Operating margins improved slightly in the third quarter, though they remain below levels seen a year ago.
Still, narrowing margins also reflect Tesla’s transition from a pure-play car company to a vertically-integrated energy and technology leader.
Despite political and tariff-related headwinds, Tesla continues to scale efficiently, as the revenue jump illustrates.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s energy revenue is now growing far faster than its automotive, which is helping off-set thinner margins on its still-growing core vehicle business.
Tesla is also rebounding from its weaker quarters following President Trump’s election win, as car sales dropped by double-digits in the first half of 2025.
With its after-hours choppiness Wednesday, the stock has climbed more than 15 percent so far in 2025.
That’s weaker than every Magnificent 7 name except Amazon and Apple.
Tesla’s board is set to vote on Musk’s new compensation at the company’s annual meeting on November 6, which could be worth $1 trillion over the next decade.
That pay package, according to Tesla, will keep Musk focused and committed to the company, and it’s contingent on unprecedented and unrealistic milestones that no other executive would be able to achieve for the business.
“I think it’s important to emphasize that Tesla really is the leader in real world AI,” Musk said on the earnings call.
“No one can do what we can do with real world AI,” he added. “I think that Tesla has the highest intelligence density of any AI out there in the car.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is facing the possibility of becoming the world’s first trillionaire if investors vote in favor of an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package on November 6.
In the company’s third quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Musk made the case that he wasn’t actually in it for the money but that he needed the voting power that comes along with it.
“I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence,” Musk said, adding that he is looking for voting power in the “mid-20s approximately.” Musk currently has around 13.5% voting power, and the proposed plan would see him add 12% to that stake over the next decade.
Proxy advisors Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis have urged Tesla investors to reject the plan due to potential decrease in company value and concerns over the details of the proposal.
In the earnings call on Wednesday, Musk called both “corporate terrorists.”
The “robot army” in question that Musk is fighting for is the company’s Optimus robot project. In the earnings call, Musk said that Tesla would be unveiling Optimus V3s early next year, and called the robots “an infinite money glitch,” while making bold claims about their potential.
The Tesla chief said that the robots can achieve “probably 5x the productivity of a person per year,” and that one would make for an “incredible surgeon.”
“It won’t even seem like a robot. It’ll seem like a person in a robot suit,” Musk said. “It’ll seem so real that you’ll need to, like, poke it, I think, to believe that it’s actually a robot.”
The billionaire is known for his optimistic claims and timelines that don’t always play out as he expects.
The company delivered a record number of vehicles this past quarter, but that was not enough to save profits, which Tesla executives claim were dented in part by tariffs set by President Trump (whom Musk campaigned hard to get elected).
With the EV tax credit now also gone, Tesla is looking down a path were there won’t be as many record vehicle deliveries. Possibly prompted by this, the company has increasingly shifted its focus to AI and robotics to drive value for the company, and Wednesday’s earnings call was yet another example of that.
Musk’s ambitious self-driving plans
Tesla is expecting to get rid of safety drivers in its robotaxis, “at least in large parts of Austin by the end of this year,” Musk said in the earnings call.
Tesla currently operates its self-driving robotaxi service in two cities: Austin and San Francisco. In both cities, robotaxis include human safety monitors in case things go awry. Tesla’s robotaxi adventure so far has been riddled with regulatory scrutiny and legal headaches.
The service will also reportedly expand its operations to new locations. Tesla now expects robotaxis to be operational in eight to ten metro areas, including in Nevada, Florida and Arizona, by the end of the year. Those new markets will start off with a safety monitor for at least the first three months or so, Musk said.
Tesla’s biggest competitor in the robotaxi space, Waymo, is operational in five metro areas, and has plans to launch in five more.
Across the automotive world, autonomous vehicles were the hot topic of the day on Wednesday.
The company’s third quarter earnings call took place just hours after competitor GM unveiled plans to debut not just hands-free but also “eyes-off” electric vehicles by 2028, to much fanfare and investor applause. Musk spent most of the call assuring investors that the company’s artificial intelligence and autonomous driving initiatives were scaling “quite massively.”
Musk said that Tesla had achieved “clarity” on unsupervised full self-driving, and now feels confident in expanding Tesla’s production as fast as possible.
“At this point I feel 100% confident that we can solve unsupervised full self-driving at a safety level much greater than any human,” Musk said.
Musk also claimed that the autonomous Teslas will be better than humans at spotting empty parking spots, thanks to 360 degree vision and advanced intelligence.
“I’m confident in saying that Tesla has the highest intelligence density. When you look at the intelligence per gigabyte, I think Tesla AI is probably an order of magnitude better than anyone else,” Musk said.
During his ramblings, the billionaire also claimed that Tesla’s self-driving cars will, in fact, become too intelligent for their own good.
Tesla might be an electric auto maker, but CEO Elon Musk has made clear that he thinks of it as much more: an innovator in artificial intelligence and software, a builder of world-shaking robots. He’s also argued that Tesla should be worth a lot more than it is today: up to $20 trillion, he posted in July, more than five times the current worth of Nvidia.
Musk has also made it clear that he wants to get paid, a lot. In November, Tesla shareholders will vote on the board’s proposal to pay the CEO a remarkable $1 trillion over the next decade. The deal would also increase Musk’s stake in Tesla from 13 percent to a quarter. But Musk would only get that big figure—and the extra control—if he hits a series of ambitious metrics, including 20 million vehicles delivered, 1 million robotaxis in commercial operation, and an $8.5 trillion valuation. And also, 1 million Optimus humanoid robots delivered.
On a call with investors on Wednesday, Musk locked on to that last point to make his most threatening argument for a gigantic payday yet. “My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is, if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future?” he said. “If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over this robot army? Not control, but a strong influence … I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army unless I have a strong influence.”
Generally, Musk talks about Tesla’s Optimus project as more of a force for peace than war. He’s said that Optimus will upend the job market and free humanity from the drudgery of work. (“Working will be optional, like growing your own vegetables, instead of buying them from the store,” he posted this week.) Elsewhere on the investor call Wednesday, he said that Tesla’s robots would “actually create a world where there is no poverty, where everyone has access to the finest medical care.”
Optimus, he added, “will be an incredible surgeon, and imagine if everyone had access to an incredible surgeon.” For Tesla, Optimus will be “an infinite money glitch,” Musk said, arguing that everyone will want a humanoid robot who can do their work for them.
Tesla’s record sales quarter has offered the company a reprieve after a terrible start to 2025. But CEO Elon Musk is focused on building a “robot army” and making good on his years-long, unfulfilled promise of self-driving cars — tasks he needs to accomplish if he is to unlock the full value of the $1 trillion compensation package that Tesla wants to award him.
The tension between Tesla’s current automotive-driven business and the AI-centric one that Musk is aiming for has never been more clear.
Tesla delivered a record number of vehicles in the third quarter of 2025, thanks in large part to a rush of customers in the United States who took advantage of the expiring federal EV tax credit. But that record quarter did not lead to greater earnings. In fact, Tesla’s third-quarter profit was still 37% lower than it was in the same quarter last year.
Tesla shipped 497,099 cars in the third quarter, which generated $21.2 billion in automotive revenue — the company’s best revenue figure in more than a year. But Tesla only pulled in a profit of $1.4 billion, up just $200 million from the second quarter of this year, according to a shareholder letter released Wednesday. The record quarter came after an abysmal start to the year for Tesla, which saw sales drop mightily in part because of Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration.
The company explained in the letter that a big increase in operating expenses — 50% higher compared to the third quarter last year — was one of the culprits. That operating expense bump was thanks to spending on AI and other R&D projects, as well as “restructuring” charges of nearly $240 million. Tesla didn’t explain what those restructuring charges were for, but it’s possibly related to the recent decision to shut down the company’s six-year-old Dojo supercomputer project.
Tesla cited tariffs as another drag on profits this past quarter, meaning Musk spent around $300 million to help elect a president who has hurt the company’s business. Tesla’s chief financial officer, Vaibhav Taneja, said on a conference call Wednesday the tariff hit was about $400 million.
“We’re at a critical inflection point for Tesla and our strategy going forward as we bring AI into the real world,” Musk said on the call. Tesla is at the “beginning of scaling, quite massively, Full Self-Driving and Robotaxi, and fundamentally changing the nature of transport,” he said.
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All of this will put even more pressure on the company’s final quarter of the year.
Tesla already needs another record quarter (and then some) if it wants to simply match the number of cars it shipped in 2024 or 2023. The company could get some help from the new slightly cheaper stripped-down versions of the Model 3 and Model Y EVs. But even in that best-case scenario, Tesla is way off the path of 50% year-over-year growth that it once promised to investors and shareholders.
But Musk has spent the last few years trying to get shareholders, investors, employees, and everyone else to look beyond the company’s core business of making and selling cars. He’s bet the future of Tesla on being able to create a vast network of self-driving vehicles that he thinks can challenge Uber. And he thinks the humanoid robot, Optimus, will become the best-selling product ever.
Tesla offered little new info on those programs in Wednesday’s letter. Musk said on the conference call that Tesla may start building the third version of Optimus in the first quarter of 2026. He had once promised to build thousands of the robots by the end of this year, but as The Information has reported, Tesla has run into problems in early production with Optimus.
“Bringing Optimus to market is an incredibly difficult task, to be clear. It’s not like some walk in the park,” Musk said.
But Musk continued Tesla’s gauzy, unspecific claims about how much Optimus will change the world. “You can actually create a world where there is no poverty, where everyone has access to the finest medical care,” he said. “Optimus will be an incredible surgeon.”
The increased focus on AI, robotics, and self-driving cars (including starting production of the two-seater “Cybercab”) will also cost Tesla more next year. Taneja said capital expenditures will increase “substantially” in 2026 thanks to those projects. He also said Tesla has had to increase employee-related spending to stay competitive in the ongoing AI talent war.
Tesla’s third-quarter results come amid the backdrop of the company’s proposal to hand $1 trillion worth of shares to Musk. That plan is up for a vote at the Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in a few weeks. The company — and Musk — are campaigning hard. While advisor groups like ISS and Glass Lewis are recommending against the pay package, it’s most likely going to pass given the overwhelming support from shareholders on previous efforts.
On Wednesday’s call, he reiterated his claim that he cares more about the voting control the compensation package would afford him than the money.
“I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no friggin’ clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists,” Musk said.
This story has been updated with new information from Tesla’s third-quarter conference call.
Tesla’s Q3 2025 update reports record vehicle deliveries and record energy storage deployments, alongside higher revenue, but earnings pressure persisted due to margin headwinds and a likely pull-forward of demand before U.S. EV tax credits expired in September.
Shares dipped about 1.4% in after-hours trading as investors appeared to brace for softer demand through the remainder of the year.
CEO Elon Musk is expected to give more detail on the company’s quarterly earnings call at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time.
Q3 results
Tesla delivered 497,099 vehicles in Q3 2025, a new quarterly record, with total production at 447,450 units, reflecting inventory drawdown to meet demand surge before tax credit expiry.
Management materials and coverage indicate revenue reached about $28.1 billion, exceeding many previews, while non-GAAP EPS was around 0.50, below year-ago levels as automotive margins remained compressed.
U.S. buyers accelerated purchases ahead of the federal EV tax credit expiration on Sept. 30, boosting Q3 but setting expectations for a potentially softer Q4 demand backdrop, per media and analyst commentary.
Segment performance
Automotive: Record deliveries were led by Model 3/Y at 481,166 deliveries (production 435,826) with “Other Models” at 15,933 deliveries (production 11,624), and about 2% of deliveries under operating lease accounting, pointing to mix and pricing dynamics supporting volume at the expense of margin.
Energy: Storage deployments hit 12.5 GWh, an all-time high, with analysts and coverage noting energy’s role as a stabilizer given higher margins versus automotive during price-competitive periods.
Services/Other: Not detailed numerically in coverage, but typically benefits from fleet growth and software; investors focused more on FSD/AI and energy momentum per previews and media.
Profitability and margins
Third-party coverage highlights earnings pressure despite record revenue, with non-GAAP EPS ~0.50 and commentary that auto gross margins (ex-credits) were likely in the mid-to-high teens, reflecting continued price competition and cost pressures.
The Wall Street Journal noted net income fell about 37% year-over-year, attributing margin compression and one-time demand pull-forward effects tied to tax policy timing, underscoring the near-term profitability challenge.
Consensus previews set expectations around revenue in the mid-to-high $26 billion range and EPS in the mid-0.50s, which Tesla largely met or exceeded on revenue but trailed on profitability, per Electrek and other outlets.
Guidance and outlook themes
Management directed investors to the update letter on the IR site, framing discussion around results and outlook following the tax credit expiration.
Analysts and media emphasized watch items: post-credit demand trajectory, automotive margins, and energy growth durability, with particular attention on how Q4 shapes up after the pull-forward.
Strategic focus remains on AI/FSD and robotaxi initiatives to support long-term valuation; several reports noted investor sensitivity to credible timelines and capability updates in these areas.
Notable context
Tesla confirmed a record quarter for both deliveries and storage deployments, thanking stakeholders and cautioning deliveries and deployments alone are not proxies for full financial performance, with details in the 10-Q to follow.
Investor materials hub lists the Q3 2025 documents and webcast access; several outlets hosted live coverage and recaps of the update letter and call.
Broader coverage connected the quarter’s stock setup to AI narratives and macro/policy dynamics, including the timing around U.S. incentives and investor expectations for autonomy progress
Musk’s earlier warning
In July, CEO Elon Musk cautioned Tesla could face “a few rough quarters” spanning Q4 into the first half of next year as U.S. federal EV tax credits expire and volumes normalize post-pull-forward, a dynamic echoed in Fortune’s reporting on tax-credit-driven demand timing and the risk of a second annual sales decline.
In the last earnings call, Musk reiterated autonomous service coverage could reach about half of the U.S. by year-end pending approvals, even as the current pilot in Austin remains small and supervised; investors are left without concrete milestones.
On AI hardware: Musk previously said Tesla’s next “AI5” inference chip would be so capable it might require performance limits outside the U.S. due to export restrictions, reinforcing the pitch that every Tesla is an AI device even as commercial autonomy metrics remain sparse.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
Starting next year, some GM drivers will be able to have natural language conversations with their cars, thanks to Gemini.
The automaker announced on Wednesday that Google’s AI assistant is coming to its vehicles beginning in 2026. The partnership will function like an evolution of what GM already offers with Google Cloud, but with added functionality and more vehicle controls, a spokesperson says. This comes even as GM teases work on developing its own AI platform that it hopes will anticipate a driver’s needs, assist with route optimization, and build on in-vehicle safety service OnStar.
“We want it eventually to be more than just saying, ‘Hey, roll the windows up or down,’” says GM’s SVP of software and services engineering, Dave Richardson. “There’s a big opportunity around maintenance. We’ve talked about detecting drowsy drivers and helping on the safety aspect as well.”
GM officially announced the news at its GM Forward media event in New York City on Wednesday, alongside a series of other updates about advancements in autonomous driving, a new computing platform for GM vehicles, scaling robotics in GM factories, and new financing for its battery systems.
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With autonomous driving, GM is preparing to level up its vehicles—literally—starting as soon as 2028. GM already offers Super Cruise, which is considered level 2 autonomy, meaning that drivers can take their hands off the steering wheel, but are responsible for the vehicle and must be ready to take over. Super Cruise is currently available on more than 600,000 miles of mapped roads across North America.
Starting in 2028 with the Cadillac Escalade IQ electric SUV, GM is aiming to introduce updates that will allow drivers to take their eyes off the road, unlocking a new tier of autonomy that Richardson calls Super Cruise 3.
“Where we’re going in 2028 with the Escalade IQ, is the ability to have that same experience [as Super Cruise], but you as the driver no longer have to keep your eyes on the road,” Richardson says. “You can be talking with people in the vehicle. You can be dozing off. I think the real appeal to people is that’s giving people tons of time back.”
Cadillac’s Escalade IQ will also be the first vehicle on which GM will debut its next generation electrical architecture, which is applicable for both internal combustion and electric vehicles. It plans to introduce so-called “software defined vehicles” in 2028.
“That’s really going to make it easy for us to do scalable, efficient software and deliver all the technology that we’re talking about here through the next years and beyond,” Richardson says.
GM also announced that it is deploying robots that are safe for human workers to be around, called cobots, into its factories, and announced that new leasing options will start in 2026 for the GM Energy Home system, which includes both bi-directional EV charging and a stationary home battery. All of these updates seem intended to position GM as a tech-heavy mobility company that leverages robotics and AI, rather than a simple automaker—much like Tesla considers itself a robotics company.
The updates come as the auto industry braces for a possible tumble in EV sales, following the Trump administration’s elimination of consumer EV credits. GM had previously been among the most bullish legacy automakers on EVs, at one point pledging to be all-electric by 2035.
“Despite slower EV industry growth, we believe the long-term future is profitable electric vehicle production. This continues to be our north star,” a GM spokesperson said in a statement. “We are guided by our customers and committed to offering them the choice and convenience they want — which means both EVs and gas-powered vehicles.”
Investor Cathie Wood, a long-time Tesla bull known for first investing in the company a decade ago at $13 per share, condemned the growing resistance to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s potential $1 trillion pay package. Over the weekend, the ARK Invest CEO suggested the financial system that’s enabling the pushback against it is the one with the problem, not the company that wants to make the world’s richest man richer by such a magnitude.
Wood said in a Sunday post on X that it was “sad if not damning” that proxy advisory firms, which make recommendations for how shareholders should vote during companies’ annual meetings, have so much influence. Wood’s comments come after two of the most important proxy firms, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass-Lewis, urged shareholders to reject during Tesla’s annual meeting on Nov. 6 the giant pay package that would give the world’s richest man 29% of the company, up from about 13% now.
Wood particularly criticized the relationship between these proxy firms and index funds, which have an outsized influence over voting because of the large number of shares they control for their investors. Each shareholder gets a certain number of votes based on how many shares they own. Yet, large institutional investors, including index funds, control massive amounts of shares held by their investors, which gives them sway over voting.
“Index funds do no fundamental research, yet dominate institutional voting. Index-based investing is a form of socialism. Our investment system is broken,” she added.
While Wood claims index funds don’t do research, their parent companies absolutely do. The three largest index funds in the world are managed by Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock, and all three do extensive research for proxy voting decisions and have their own proxy voting guidelines that they publish. Also, those three funds hold over $2 trillion tracking the S&P 500 index and represent the vast majority of retail traders invested in the stock market. While index funds don’t do research to pick stocks, they utilize their research base for voting decisions.
Both proxy firms recommended shareholders vote against Musk’s pay package partly because it dilutes existing investors’ shares and gives Tesla’s highly compensated board too much flexibility when it comes to the goals Musk has to meet to get the full payout, which is about equal to the company’s total market cap.
In another series of posts, Wood added that ISS and Glass Lewis don’t see the potential in Tesla that ARK Invest does and seemingly suggested index funds should be stripped of their voting power. ARK Invest’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF’s largest holding is Tesla, which makes up about 12% of its $8 billion portfolio.
“I believe that history will decide that Glass Lewis and ISS have been menaces to innovation, enabling passive investors who care about ‘tracking errors’ to their indexes but do not care about much else,” Wood wrote in a post referring to how closely index funds track indexes such as the S&P 500.
Russell Rhoads, a clinical associate professor of financial management at Indiana University, said while investors in an active fund know its management may push for changes to a company if it is struggling, the same isn’t true for passive investors who put their money into index funds.
“In general, if I put money into a fund, that’s supposed to mirror the index, that is a passive investment,” he said. “I’m just investing in the market and not trying to influence anything what any other companies are doing business wise.”
Tesla, for its part, said in a Monday statement that the proxy firms aren’t considering the previous 2018 pay package approved by shareholders on two different occasions that allocated $56 billion to Musk over 10 years. Both ISS and Glass Lewis also recommended voters reject the 2018 pay package.
“Glass Lewis’s one-size-fits-all checklists undermine shareholders’ interests, including by opposing proposals designed to build long-term value at Tesla,” the statement read.
When reached for comment, representatives from Glass Lewis and ISS directed Fortune to their respective proxy papers on Tesla.
Prior to the proxy firms’ reports, the SOC Investment Group, which works with pension funds sponsored by major unions such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, as well as several parties with an interest in Tesla including state financial officers, signed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission urging shareholders to vote no on Musk’s pay package earlier this month.
If Musk’s pay is approved and the three board members are reelected, “this year may be one of the last times that public shareholders have a meaningful voice in the Company and its leadership given the level of dilution that is likely to take place,” the letter argued.
Tejal Patel, the executive director of Tesla shareholder group SOC Investment Group, saiddespite the company claiming Musk needs more incentive to stay engaged with Tesla, Musk’s incentives should already align with the company whose shares represent the bulk of his $455 billion net worth. SOC has been vocally critical of Tesla and its corporate governance for multiple Musk pay packages on multiple grounds.
“We just don’t believe that these pay packages are going to really incentivize Mr. Musk to stay at Tesla, nor to be focused on Tesla over his other business endeavors,” Patel told Fortune.
Still, Wood said she was confident Musk’s pay package would pass, in part because of the support of retail investors, which hold about 40% of Tesla’s voting shares.
“Although the proxy firm ISS has recommended against the package, retail investors are likely to dominate the vote once again. America!”
[This report has been updated to include a paragraph providing additional context on the extent of the major index funds’ research activities.]
Easing trade tensions and a big gain in Apple shares helped drive stocks back toward records on Monday, the start of a heavy week of corporate earnings.
Indexes opened with gains, with some investors saying sentiment was buoyed by President Trump saying he will soon meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Friday comments that he will meet with his Chinese counterpart in person this week.
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean, I was talking to someone before these recent layoffs who’d worked at the CDC previously and had been pretty involved in efforts to study the impact of certain diseases or pandemics specifically on pregnant populations, and this person had told me a while ago, that entire team was gone. They didn’t have many people in place anymore who could look at particularly vulnerable populations from a health perspective, which I found pretty sad and disturbing, but now, I mean, it’s just getting so much worse. It’s getting so much worse.
Jake Lahut: And Russell Vought seems to be quite happy about each additional version of this that keeps coming down the pike, so.
Zoë Schiffer: Right. Okay. We’ll talk more about these federal layoffs and how they’ve affected other agencies too in our next segment. But before we go to break, I’ve got a fun and very tech bro scoop for you, Cybertrucks.
Jake Lahut: Yeah. Honestly, I should be paying you to be on the show today, Zoë, so tell me more about it.
Zoë Schiffer: Okay. Well, I found this story so charming because essentially our Features Director Reyhan had said, “Let’s do a photo essay of Cybertruck owners.” And I was like, ‘I volunteer as tribute. I really want to do this.” So I contacted a bunch of people, I was actually going around, and when I saw Cybertrucks, I would leave little notes on their car. Not a single person ever responded to me, I was like.
Jake Lahut: Stalker behavior.
Zoë Schiffer: “Okay, all right.” But eventually I got in contact with this guy who runs Cybertrucks Owners Only, which is this 50,000 person Facebook group that’s really, really active. And he, while very suspicious of the media, like many Cybertrucks owners was like, “I’m game. If you come to Palm Springs on this weekend, we can have a Cybertrucks meetup and you can go meet people, you can take photos and interview them.” I love reporting where your original thesis is completely disproven in the course of the reporting, and the Cybertrucks owners really see themselves as the victims of this campaign. They’re being spit at, they’re being targeted, people yell that they’re Nazis. And to a lot of people who I talk to, they don’t see their purchase of this car as at all political. They’re like, “I just like the car. It’s a cool car, it’s fun and all of these crazy liberal people are screaming at me all day. I have my kids in the car and they’re chasing after me calling me a Nazi.” The article came out today, there’s some really cool photos. I’m curious to hear what you thought.
Earnings reports next week, including from Tesla and Netflix, will provide a deeper look at U.S. corporate profits while delayed U.S. inflation data will mark another test of the stock market, which has become shakier even as it remains around record highs.
The fourth year of the S&P 500’s bull run kicked off this week with some significant gyrations after a long period of market calm.
Revived U.S.-China trade tensions and credit concerns at regional U.S. banks drove the anxiety. The CBOE market volatility index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, has surged in recent days and hit its highest level in nearly six months on Friday.
“The market is becoming more volatile, but it’s also coming off of a very non-volatile period where we didn’t have a lot of risk catalysts bubbling to the top,” said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede.
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“Once you have valuations hit sort of full levels, as we’re seeing now almost across the board, you have to be on the lookout for incremental risk catalysts.”
The spark for the latest volatility was a surprise resurgence in U.S.-China trade tensions. Stocks slumped late last week after the U.S. threatened to significantly hike tariffs by November 1 over China’s rare-earth export controls.
The U.S.-China trade issue will be key for markets in the coming week, said Doug Beath, global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that he would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in two weeks in South Korea.
Sharp swings in global financial shares to end the week also kept investors on edge as they weighed the extent of credit concerns emerging from regional U.S. banks.
Major stock indexes posted weekly gains and are on pace for strong years. The benchmark S&P 500 is up 13.3 percent year-to-date and 1.3 percent below its record high. But there are signs the market is weakening under the surface.
The percentage of S&P 500 stocks in some form of an uptrend declined from 77 percent in early July to 57 percent as of Tuesday while the number of stocks in a downtrend increased from 23 percent to 44 percent over that time, according to Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial.
That “narrowing gap highlights emerging cracks in the market’s foundation,” Turnquist said in written commentary. Similarly, Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said he will be watching how broadly based the market’s gains are going forward.
“If you have a fewer number of companies that are actually moving higher, but the indexes do move higher because of the megacaps, that’s a really important divergence,” Gordon said.
Attention will be on third-quarter earnings after major banks started the reporting season on a strong note. Aside from streaming giant Netflix and electric vehicle maker Tesla, other companies due to report in the coming week include consumer companies Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, aerospace and defense giant RTX and tech stalwart IBM.
The corporate results and executive comments will offer insight into the economy as the U.S. government shutdown has stopped economic data releases since October 1, including monthly employment data.
Corporate “reports and what companies say is really our best chance at assessing what the broader economic health is,” Gordon said.
The government has said it will release the U.S. consumer price index for September on Friday, nine days late, saying the CPI data allows the Social Security Administration to meet deadlines for timely payment of benefits.
The CPI report, which is a closely watched inflation gauge, will be released days before the Federal Reserve’s next monetary policy meeting on October 28-29. The U.S. central bank is widely expected to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point again, after weakening jobs data prompted the Fed to lower rates last month for the first time this year.
“We’d really have to see something out of left field in terms of notable inflation pressures to knock the Fed off of a rate cut path at the October meeting,” Glenmede’s Reynolds said.
Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by David Gregorio and Cynthia Osterman
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a new investigation into 2.88 million Tesla vehicles running “Full Self-Driving” (FSD). Officials say the system may be breaking traffic laws, and worse, causing accidents. According to Reuters, 58 reports describe Teslas blowing through red lights, drifting into the wrong lanes and even crashing at intersections. Fourteen of those cases involved actual crashes, and 23 caused injuries.
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In one striking pattern, six Tesla vehicles reportedly ran red lights before colliding with other cars. One driver in Houston complained that FSD “is not recognizing traffic signals,” saying the car stopped at green lights but ran through reds. The driver even said Tesla saw the issue firsthand during a test drive, but refused to fix it. The agency is also reviewing new reports that some Teslas using FSD failed to handle railroad crossings safely, with one case involving a near-collision with an oncoming train.
Tesla faces new federal probe into crashes linked to Full Self-Driving mode.(Tesla)
Mounting legal and safety scrutiny
This is far from Tesla’s first brush with regulators. The company is already facing several investigations tied to both its Autopilot and FSD systems. In one high-profile case, a California jury ordered Tesla to pay $329 million after an Autopilot-related crash killed a woman. Another investigation is looking into Tesla’s limited Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, where passengers reported erratic driving and speeding — even with human safety drivers onboard. Meanwhile, Tesla is still fighting a false advertising lawsuit from California’s DMV. Regulators say calling the software “Full Self-Driving” is misleading since it requires constant driver supervision. Tesla recently changed the name to “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” to reflect that reality.
Regulators say more crashes may come
Tesla’s latest FSD software update arrived just days before the investigation began. But the NHTSA says the system has already “induced vehicle behavior that violated traffic safety laws.” This investigation, now in its early stages, could lead to a recall if the agency finds Tesla’s self-driving software poses a safety risk.
Regulators say some Teslas ran red lights and ignored traffic signals.(Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
What this means for you
If you drive a Tesla with FSD enabled, stay alert. The system isn’t fully autonomous, no matter what the name suggests. You should:
Keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road at all times.
Manually override the system when approaching intersections, crosswalks or railroad tracks.
Check for Tesla software updates regularly — they may include critical safety fixes.
Report any unsafe FSD behavior to NHTSA.
For everyone else, this investigation is a reminder that “self-driving” still means supervised driving.
Robotaxi tests raise fresh safety questions for Tesla’s self-driving cars.(AP)
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Tesla’s dream of a fully autonomous future keeps hitting speed bumps. With safety regulators circling and lawsuits piling up, the company’s next moves will shape public trust in AI-driven transportation. Still, the push toward automation isn’t slowing down; it’s just under heavier watch.
How much control would you give an AI behind the wheel? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
Tesla has added another brazenly stupid new entry to its dubioussafetyrecord. The latest update to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving System adds a mode called Mad Max, “which comes with higher speeds and more frequent lane changes” than the system’s Hurry mode. This feature isn’t new; it was part of the Autopilot mode in 2018 that pre-dated FSD. According to Electrek, the re-introduction of Mad Max mode is going exactly as well as you’d expect: “It hasn’t been out for 24 hours, and it has already been spotted rolling stop signs and driving more than 15 mph (24 km/h) over the speed limit.”
Everything about this is a comically bad idea, or it would be comic if it wasn’t so downright dangerous. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just opened an investigation into the company’s FSD system last week after receiving more than 50 reports of traffic safety violations in addition to numerous crashes. And this is just the mostrecenttime the regulator has put FSD in its crosshairs. Choosing this moment to reintroduce an automated driving mode based on a post-apocalyptic wasteland where life is meaningless is a level of arrogance that does feel on brand for Tesla.
They say journalists never truly clock out. But for Christian, that’s not just a metaphor, it’s a lifestyle. By day, he navigates the ever-shifting tides of the cryptocurrency market, wielding words like a seasoned editor and crafting articles that decipher the jargon for the masses. When the PC goes on hibernate mode, however, his pursuits take a more mechanical (and sometimes philosophical) turn.
Christian’s journey with the written word began long before the age of Bitcoin. In the hallowed halls of academia, he honed his craft as a feature writer for his college paper. This early love for storytelling paved the way for a successful stint as an editor at a data engineering firm, where his first-month essay win funded a months-long supply of doggie and kitty treats – a testament to his dedication to his furry companions (more on that later).
Christian then roamed the world of journalism, working at newspapers in Canada and even South Korea. He finally settled down at a local news giant in his hometown in the Philippines for a decade, becoming a total news junkie. But then, something new caught his eye: cryptocurrency. It was like a treasure hunt mixed with storytelling – right up his alley!
So, he landed a killer gig at NewsBTC, where he’s one of the go-to guys for all things crypto. He breaks down this confusing stuff into bite-sized pieces, making it easy for anyone to understand (he salutes his management team for teaching him this skill).
Think Christian’s all work and no play? Not a chance! When he’s not at his computer, you’ll find him indulging his passion for motorbikes. A true gearhead, Christian loves tinkering with his bike and savoring the joy of the open road on his 320-cc Yamaha R3. Once a speed demon who hit 120mph (a feat he vowed never to repeat), he now prefers leisurely rides along the coast, enjoying the wind in his thinning hair.
Speaking of chill, Christian’s got a crew of furry friends waiting for him at home. Two cats and a dog. He swears cats are way smarter than dogs (sorry, Grizzly), but he adores them all anyway. Apparently, watching his pets just chillin’ helps him analyze and write meticulously formatted articles even better.
Here’s the thing about this guy: He works a lot, but he keeps himself fueled by enough coffee to make it through the day – and some seriously delicious (Filipino) food. He says a delectable meal is the secret ingredient to a killer article. And after a long day of crypto crusading, he unwinds with some rum (mixed with milk) while watching slapstick movies.
Looking ahead, Christian sees a bright future with NewsBTC. He says he sees himself privileged to be part of an awesome organization, sharing his expertise and passion with a community he values, and fellow editors – and bosses – he deeply respects.
So, the next time you tread into the world of cryptocurrency, remember the man behind the words – the crypto crusader, the grease monkey, and the feline philosopher, all rolled into one.
The GHF was created in early 2025, having emerged from conversations between individuals such as Eisenberg, Tancman, and consultant Yotam HaCohen—who, like Tancman, is a part of COGAT. They were reportedly concerned that Hamas was stealing aid meant for civilians, however, an analysis by a USAID agency found no evidence of this.
Through conversations with Israeli officials, GHF began to receive on-ground support from two American companies: Safe Reach Solutions, run by former CIA officer Philip Reilly, and UG Solutions, run by former Green Beret Jameson Govoni. Neither responded to requests for comment.
GHF is currently run by Johnnie Moore Jr., a former Trump official, and evangelical Christian. It was originally headed by Jake Wood, a former Marine who founded Team Rubicon, an organization that deploys veterans to disaster zones. Wood resigned after about three months, claiming that he couldn’t oversee aid distribution at GHF while “adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
Alternative Paths
The GREAT Trust presentation is not the only business-minded plan for redeveloping Gaza.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair has been linked to the development of an alternative plan that was leaked to the Guardian and Haaretz. Among other things, the plan proposes creating a Gaza Investment Promotion and Economic Development Authority, which would be a “commercially driven authority, led by business professionals and tasked with generating investable projects,” according to various reports of the plan, but it does not mention any specific companies.
Another group called “Palestine Emerging”—made up of an international collective of business executives and consultants—also created a post-war Gaza blueprint. It does not get into detail about investments from businesses abroad, but argues that there will have to be a “phased development strategy” in the short, medium, and long-term in order to rebuild Gaza’s housing and economy. The blueprint also mentions that there were “about 56,000 businesses in Gaza” before October 7, 2023, which were subject to “historical constraints” that limited their success.
The expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles, initially passed by Democrats during the Biden administration, leaves consumers looking for other ways to save on their next purchase.Experts say the tax credit previously helped make electric vehicles more affordable, increasing interest in them. Aaron Bragman, the Detroit Bureau Chief at Cars.com, said automakers are now offering electric vehicles that are both profitable for them and affordable for consumers. Bragman noted, “The tax credit has been good for just about everybody. It’s really kind of fostered this whole nascent industry of electric vehicles. It’s gotten people a lot more familiar with them and how they work. It’s helped to build out the infrastructure, the charging infrastructure in the United States, because there’s demand for it. People want the fast charging infrastructure throughout the country, even that has really been starting to accelerate.”There may still be separate incentives available at state and local levels. “The affordable EV isn’t necessarily going away, and there are still some incentives out there,” Bragman said. “It just takes some research and some partnering with your local dealership to find out what those might be where you are.”Car companies such as Ford, Nissan, and Kia are offering deals on electric vehicles, and Tesla has recently changed its referral program to boost incentives for consumers.Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
WASHINGTON —
The expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles, initially passed by Democrats during the Biden administration, leaves consumers looking for other ways to save on their next purchase.
Experts say the tax credit previously helped make electric vehicles more affordable, increasing interest in them.
Aaron Bragman, the Detroit Bureau Chief at Cars.com, said automakers are now offering electric vehicles that are both profitable for them and affordable for consumers.
Bragman noted, “The tax credit has been good for just about everybody. It’s really kind of fostered this whole nascent industry of electric vehicles. It’s gotten people a lot more familiar with them and how they work. It’s helped to build out the infrastructure, the charging infrastructure in the United States, because there’s demand for it. People want the fast charging infrastructure throughout the country, even that has really been starting to accelerate.”
There may still be separate incentives available at state and local levels.
“The affordable EV isn’t necessarily going away, and there are still some incentives out there,” Bragman said. “It just takes some research and some partnering with your local dealership to find out what those might be where you are.”
Car companies such as Ford, Nissan, and Kia are offering deals on electric vehicles, and Tesla has recently changed its referral program to boost incentives for consumers.
Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
Did you find this article by typing in the name of a website associated with Elon Musk? Did it sound like you could invest in SpaceX, Neuralink, or one of Musk’s AI ventures like Grok and xAI? It’s fake. It’s 100%, without a doubt, completely fake.
I know you may not believe it, but please read on. Because this article could save you from losing a lot of money. Elon Musk is a very wealthy man. He’s worth $500 billion, according to Forbes, making him the wealthiest person on the planet. But Musk does not have a website dedicated to making other people rich.
You may have seen an ad on Facebook or maybe a video on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. It may have even looked like Elon Musk was talking about some amazing investment opportunity. Maybe it looked like Elon was raising money for a sick child. You may have even been asked to send money through gift cards or a bitcoin ATM. But it was fake. You need to believe us. Because it’s true.
Musk does not have a website selling cryptocurrencies. He doesn’t have a website for trading stocks. He doesn’t have a public website selling shares of his private companies like SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, and X. The promotional video you saw is fake and probably used artificial intelligence tools to make it look like Elon Musk was saying something he never said.
People are losing millions
Did someone reach out to you on a social media site like Facebook or Instagram claiming to be Elon? Did they tell you to talk with them over Signal or Telegram or WhatsApp? That person is a scammer. Elon Musk does not reach out to people on websites and ask them for money. And if they haven’t already asked you to send money, that part is coming.
Again, you might be skeptical. A lot of people want to believe that Elon Musk is offering ways for the average person to become rich. But he’s not. Among other reasons, he doesn’t have time.
Here at Gizmodo, we’ve written about scammers impersonating Elon Musk for years.
There was the woman in Washington who lost $63,000 because she thought she was talking to Elon.
There was the person who lost over $18,000 watching a video livestream they thought was for Tesla.
There was also the Florida principal who sent an Elon Musk scammer a check for $100,000.
People have literally been losing millions of dollars to scammers over the years because they thought they were investing in something approved by Elon Musk. But it was all fake.
Scam AI Videos
It’s incredible what can be accomplished with AI these days. You can make people appear to say things they never said. For example, here’s an ad we spotted below. Elon never said any of that.
Fake Elon Websites
All of the websites below are scams. And while Gizmodo is often reluctant to advertise the web domains of scammers, because it risks inadvertently driving more people to scammy websites, using the names of the scams is the only way to help get the word out that these specific websites will steal your money.
And this list only scratches the surface. These are some of the domains that have been reported to the FTC, but there are so many more out there.
ceomusk.org [SCAM]
elonbitcoin.fun [SCAM]
elonchristmas.com [SCAM]
fastmars.net [SCAM]
investmuskspace.icu [SCAM]
marshome.us [SCAM]
marsway.net [SCAM]
marsyox.com [SCAM]
marsvalue.net [SCAM]
myteslatoken.com [SCAM]
official2xMusk.com [SCAM]
shippingteslamail.com [SCAM]
tesla-clubs.com [SCAM]
tesla-prize-x.com [SCAM]
teslaminingprogram.com [SCAM]
teslaminingplatform.aphatrad.com [SCAM]
teslaoption.com [SCAM]
teslapresale.net [SCAM]
tesla.token-presale.org [SCAM]
teslatoken-presale.online [SCAM]
telsaxmarketing.com [SCAM]
tsla-marketspro.com [SCAM]
teslgets.com [SCAM]
tsl-xspace.pw [SCAM]
x-coin-platform.io [SCAM]
Scam Names
There are also scams that you may know by various names that aren’t dedicated websites, but are being spread through social media platforms. Some of the common ones we’ve seen are below.
Elon Musk Fan Page Membership Card
Elon Musk x Donald Trump Crypto Giveaway
Space Stock Mining
Tesla Bitcoin
Tesla Token
Tesla Mining
Neuralink Crypto Token
SpaceX Token
Please believe us. It’s not real.
Maybe someone sent you this article. Maybe you found it through Google. Please know that visiting these websites and “investing” in them will only lead you to heartache and pain.
The people who’ve been scammed at these sites often feel foolish afterward. And we don’t want you to feel foolish. We want you to avoid just handing your money away for nothing.
If you’re interested in investing, there are plenty of reputable places to do that. You can even invest in Musk’s company, Tesla, if you want to buy stock in that company through a reputable stockbroker. All investing involves risks, but the websites we’ve featured here aren’t just risks where you might make some money or you might lose some money.
If you give any of these websites your money, you will only lose. We promise you.
Have you been scammed and want to tell your story? You can email the author of this article at [email protected].
Back in 2020, Musk stood on stage at Tesla’s Battery Day and said the company would build a $25,000 car “about three years from now.” Not only that, but this mythical car would be fully autonomous and powered by Tesla’s next-generation battery technology. Tesla was going to sell you a car that was not only inexpensive and able to drive itself, but that you’d be able to rent out when you weren’t using it.
That was five years ago, and it still hasn’t happened. Now, even Tesla’s most loyal fans are starting to lose patience.
Since then, that car has been delayed, redefined, or quietly ignored—depending on which day you catch Musk on X. At one point, he dismissed the idea altogether, saying it didn’t make sense to build a $25,000 car with a human driver. More recently, he’s shifted his focus to the so-called “Cybercab,” a self-driving robotaxi that doesn’t actually exist yet either. The problem is that a lot of people are still waiting for what they were promised.
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
That’s what made the company special in the first place. It wasn’t just a car company—it was a promise. Tesla’s mission was to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, and you can’t really do that if only the wealthy can afford your cars. For a long time, fans gave Tesla the benefit of the doubt because the company was actually delivering: the Model 3 and Model Y became two of the best-selling EVs in the world.
At some point, however, promises have to turn into products.
This month, Tesla announced new “Standard” versions of both the Model 3 and Model Y. They were supposed to be that long-awaited affordable option. The Model 3 Standard starts at $36,990, and the Model Y Standard at $39,990. That’s cheaper, technically—but it’s not what people were expecting. And once you add Tesla’s $1,640 destination and order fees, those prices don’t fit what most people think of when you promise something “affordable.”
More importantly, to make those numbers work, Tesla seems to have just stripped out a bunch of features. Well, sort of. It has fewer speakers, no rear-seat display, and a simplified interior. It seems that the glass roof is still there, but Tesla just added a cloth headliner to cover it up.
For investors, that might make sense. Tesla has been under pressure as sales slow and competition intensifies, especially in China and Europe. Cutting costs is one way to protect margins. But for customers, the move feels as though Tesla’s idea of affordability is just to take away all the nice things.
It’s not even that the new cars are bad. They are still Teslas, which means you still get the single greatest advantage of driving a Model Y or Model 3, which is that you can plug into the world’s best charging network. The thing is, Tesla has had five years to keep its word, and instead of delivering a $25,000 EV, it delivered a $40,000 one without a roof you can see through.
Every time Musk teases an affordable Tesla that never arrives, it seems less likely it ever will. It gets harder and harder to believe, and that’s a problem. Over time, broken promises add up to a pile of broken trust. Tesla’s greatest strength used to be that it could sell a vision—a future that felt like it was just around the corner. Eventually, fans give up.
Meanwhile, everyone else caught up to what was once a massive lead. BYD, Hyundai, GM, Kia, and even Volkswagen all have sub-$30,000 electric models on the road today. Many of them have comparable range, more comfort, and better build quality.
The new Chevy Bolt will likely undercut Tesla by almost $10,000 when it returns next year. And in Europe and China, there are now entire categories of small EVs that cost half as much as a Model 3 Standard. They may not have Tesla’s brand mystique, but they’re good enough—and good enough is what wins in the mass market.
The truth is that Tesla needs an affordable model more than ever. Not just because it made a promise, but for survival. Growth has slowed, margins are shrinking, and the company’s next act—self-driving robotaxis and humanoid robots—still seems a lot like science fiction.
At one point, Tesla’s promise of a $25,000 car felt like a bold declaration that technology could make sustainability accessible. Now, it feels like something Musk sold to build hype, even if he never believed it himself. You can’t change the world if the people who believed in you the most start to walk away.
In the end, that’s the real danger for Tesla–that it’s losing the trust that came from doing impossible things and delivering them anyway. When that’s gone, all that’s left is another car company trying to sell expensive cars in a world that’s already full of them.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
The issues could cascade beyond the design. The auto manufacturing industry operates on strict production schedules. Though it builds in time to validate and test whatever new features come in each new model, the sudden intro of a design change late in the process could throw off the delicate timetable.
In this decade, China’s auto industry has shocked the world by racing ahead of legacy automakers, quickly developing, with government support, ever newer, cheaper, and more technologically advanced vehicles on shorter production schedules. The country is the world’s largest automotive market; it’s expected to manufacture a full third of the world’s cars by 2030. Still, quickly complying with new design regulations won’t be easy for domestic Chinese automakers either, says Broglin-Peterson. “Mechncial release requires a mechanical assembly,” she says. “It’s not just, you write some code.”
Automaker’s door handle trouble likely won’t end in China. The new rules could lead to cascading responses from other global regulators. It’s a now-familiar pattern: China, once a place with lax protections, has forged ahead of the rest of the world in setting guidelines for electric vehicle battery safety and recycling, and autonomous vehicle tech. “This is a classic example of China setting the guardrails early: protecting consumers while quietly shaping global design standards,” Bill Russo, the CEO of Automobility, a Shanghai-based advisory firm, wrote in an email.
A Handle on Design
For many years, says Raphael Zammit, the chair of the transportation design department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, flush electronic door handles were the stuff of futuristic concept cars. “The fact that Elon Musk and Tesla put it into production was, frankly, pretty amazing,” he says. Their rise was linked with the increasing popularity of electric vehicles; tucking door handles into the doors of cars was meant to reduce their drag coefficient, leading to increased battery efficiency. Or so the theory went: Back-of-the-envelope math suggests the tweak maybe adds a mile of range. Maybe. Either way, the handles became a “demarcation of luxury,” Zammit says.
Indeed, electronic door handles can be found on many luxury vehicles, including some made by Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz. Jake Fisher, the senior director of the Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center, tested several of those vehicles’ electronic handles. While all had emergency mechanical releases, as the Chinese regulations mandate, some were in places that could be difficult to find in an emergency—on the floor, in shadow, or, as in the rear seats of the 2021 Model Y under investigation by NHTSA, under a slot at the bottom of the rear door pocket. The best emergency mechanical releases, Consumer Reports found, were those that simply needed to be pulled a bit harder than usual to open, an intuitive reaction in an emergency.
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Elon Musk has never had the best relationship with regulators, often bumping up against or outright sidestepping local and state laws where his numerous companies operate.
This week has been particularly active on the regulatory front.
Musk’s tunneling and infrastructure firm The Boring Companyis accused of nearly 800 violations by Nevada regulators, including digging without approval, dumping untreated water onto city streets, failing to install silt fences, and tracking dirt from construction sites onto nearby roadways, a ProPublica investigation discovered.
Then there is Tesla, which was hit with an enforcement action by California’s Department of Insurance for routinely denying or delaying customer claims despite years of warnings from the state regulator. Reminder: Tesla is an insurance provider in certain states.
Tesla also has the attention, once again, of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency opened an investigation into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving tech after receiving reports the software caused vehicles to run red lights or cross into wrong lanes.
The NHTSA has investigated Tesla before. But this one is notable because it specifically targets Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assistance software. And Musk, as well as Tesla shareholders, have pinned the company’s future on its ability to be a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, as well as robotics and AI.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025
This single investigation likely won’t derail Tesla’s plans; the company just rolled out the newest version of FSD (v14). But it is another example of increased scrutiny on the technology that Tesla is trying to put front and center and raises questions about its robotaxis, which uses a version of its FSD software.
A little bird
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin
A Wired article from July discovered that General Motorsrepurposed a few Chevy Bolt EVs that had been part of the shuttered Cruise robotaxi program and was driving them on select highways in Michigan near Austin, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area to develop simulation models and new driver-assistance technology.
Now it seems that General Motors might be moving forward with its autonomous vehicle development but in potentially surprising ways. When GM absorbed Cruise in December 2024, it said it would combine Cruise’s tech with its own ADAS efforts to develop fully autonomous personal vehicles.
We’re hearing chatter here and there that GM is building out an AV team across Austin and Mountain View. This comes just a couple months after GM started rehiring laid-off Cruise employees, per Bloomberg.
We’re poking around and if you know anything, reach out.
Joby Aviation sold 30.5 million shares to raise about $514 million, money that the company said would be used to fund certification and manufacturing efforts and prepare for commercial operations, as well as for general working capital and other general corporate purposes. The company plans to start carrying passengers in its electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in Dubai in 2026, followed by the United States.
Investors didn’t react too favorably, though, because shares went for a discount. Under the deal, they sold for $16.85 per share, nearly 11% lower than the previous close.
Other deals that got my attention this week …
I forgot this one last week. Futurail, a European startup developing an autonomy stack for self-driving trains, raised €7.5 million in seed funding co-led by Asterion Ventures and Leap435, joined by EIT Urban Mobility and U.S. investors Zero Infinity Partners and Heroic Ventures. Side note: The Autonocast, a podcast I co-host, recently had Alex Haag, CEO and co-founder of Futurail, on the show. Take a listen.
Nexcade, a London-based startup developing end-to-end automation for freight forwarders, raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Connect Ventures. MMC Ventures, Entropy Industrial Capital, and Inovia also participated.
Toyota and Metal Mining have struck a deal to work together on the mass production of cathode materials for all-solid-state batteries to be installed in battery electric vehicles.
Tycho AI, an autonomous drone navigation startup, raised $10 million in a Series A round led by FirstMark.
Utilimarc, a Minneapolis-based fleet analytics and benchmarking company, was acquired by Smith System. The terms were not disclosed.
Notable reads and other tidbits
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin
California governorGavin Newsom signed a bill that gives Uber and Lyft drivers in the state the right to unionize as independent contractors.
Just last week, we featured DoorDash’s efforts to build its own autonomous delivery robot. But that internal program isn’t stopping the company from outside partnerships. DoorDash and Serve Robotics announced a multi-year partnership that would see them using autonomous robots to make deliveries across the United States.
Lucid delivered a record number of EVs in the third quarter. While it’s still nowhere near the projections it shared back when it was going public, the recent sales report does show progress.
Lyft has locked in another AV partnership — this time with Tensor Auto. The plan, the companies said, is to deploy robotaxis in Europe and North America starting in 2027. Tensor Auto might not sound familiar, but Chinese robotaxi company AutoX might. Tensor Auto’s roots are from AutoX, although the San Jose-based company has told TechCrunch in the past that AutoX’s Chinese operations were fully divested.
Transportation includes infrastructure like bridges. Climate tech reporter Tim De Chant looked into Allium Engineering, a startup developing paper-thin stainless steel that could change how bridges are built.
Tesla revealed bare-bones versions of the Model 3 and Model Y, which start at $36,990 and $39,990, respectively. These “standard” versions are pretty stripped down. Senior reporter Sean O’Kane provides more detail here.
A few things jumped out at me. For one, I was surprised this standard version doesn’t include Autopilot. Also, Tesla is really known for innovating, from its manufacturing process and software-first approach to its business model. But this wasn’t an act of innovation or even cleverness. It was merely stripping away — and the end result wasn’t the deep discounts that had been previously touted. Remember, Elon Musk was once pushing a $25,000 vehicle, a program that was later scrapped.
Zero Motorcycleshas moved its key operations from California to a new European headquarters in the Netherlands. The company told TechCrunch the move is designed to accelerate growth and sharpen focus on global opportunities.
One more thing …
If you’re in San Francisco later this month, come say hello. I’ll be at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, which will be held October 27 to October 29 at Moscone West. And there are a few transportation-related talks you won’t want to miss.
For instance, TechCrunch will be interviewing Uber chief product officer Sachin Kansal and Nuro co-founder and president Dave Fergusonabout the evolving relationship between AI and mobility. The discussion is expected to cover how predictive models and computer vision are improving road safety, why last-mile delivery is an autonomy proving ground, and what it will take to bring AI-driven transportation to scale.
AI companies are making their much-anticipated enterprise plays, but the results are wildly inconsistent. Just this week, Deloitte announced it’s rolling out Anthropic’s Claude to all 500,000 employees. On the very same day, the Australian government forced Deloitte to refund a contract because their AI-generated report was riddled with fake citations. It’s a perfect snapshot of where we are: companies racing to adopt AI tools before they’ve figured out how to use them responsibly.
On this episode of Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into the messy reality of AI in the workplace, plus funding news and regulatory drama across tech and transportation.
Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including:
Zendesk’s claim that its new AI agents can handle 80% of customer service tickets autonomously, and what happens in the other 20%
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.
