Tesla is “working on” redesigning its door handles so they are less likely to trap people inside the company’s cars, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen told Bloomberg News on Wednesday.
The news comes just one day after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an probe into Tesla’s door handles, and one week after a Bloomberg News investigation highlighted multiple instances where owners or passengers were stuck in their cars following a crash.
Von Holzhausen didn’t specify when Tesla made the decision to rethink how its door handles work, according to Bloomberg. China has already been pushing automakers to reconsider the use of fully concealed door handles because of safety concerns, although the country’s top regulator has not taken a final action.
One of the two apparent problems with Tesla’s door handles has been they use electronic locks, which can stop working if they aren’t receiving power from the car’s battery system. The other is that, while Tesla does have manual door releases built into its cars, they are often hard to find and difficult to access.
“The idea of combining the electronic one and the manual one together into one button, I think, makes a lot of sense,” von Holzhausen told Bloomberg. “That’s something that we’re working on.”
NHTSA opened its investigation on Tuesday after the agency said it had received nine complaints from Tesla owners who experienced a failure with their door handles. In four of those cases, the safety agency said the owners had to break a window “to regain entry into the vehicle.”
Tesla includes instructions in its owner’s manuals that describe how to use an outside power source to activate dead electronic door locks, as both NHTSA and Bloomberg have noted. But NHTSA noted in its preliminary report that none of the owners who contacted the agency reported seeing low-voltage battery warnings — meaning they likely would not have known what was causing the problem.
Who says journalism is dead? Less than a week after Bloomberg published a damning report about Tesla’s “dangerous doors,” the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is now looking into it. On Tuesday, the regulator said it opened an investigation into the automaker’s electrically powered doors. The problem: They stop working if the vehicle’s low-voltage battery fails.
The NHTSA’s probe will cover the 2021 Model Y, which covers an estimated 174,290 vehicles. But the agency suggested in a document that it could expand its investigation. That makes sense: Every Tesla ever made uses electrically powered door handles. So, this could potentially get very expensive for the otherwise perfectly lovable company.
Tesla uses a flush door handle design for its vehicles. A 12-volt battery powers the door’s ability to pop the handle and release the latch. It’s one of the Apple-like design details that helped the automaker become a household name. But cars aren’t iPhones, and sleekness can’t take a backseat to safety in the auto space.
Tesla vehicles have a mechanical backup system in the cabin that enables the doors to be opened manually in case of a power loss. But the manual release location varies by model and is often hard to find. And even if you do know where it is, that won’t help if a small child or pet is trapped inside.
“Although Tesla vehicles have manual door releases inside of the cabin, in these situations, a child may not be able to access or operate the releases even if the vehicle’s driver is aware of them,” the NHTSA wrote in its public summary document.
Bloomberg‘s original report recounted some heinous stories of Tesla owners dealing with electronic door failures. There was an off-duty firefighter who struggled to break into a burning Model Y in 2023. The occupant was trapped in the passenger seat by airbags and couldn’t reach the manual release. Losing precious seconds due to the door design, she suffered third-degree facial burns and had lasting lung damage from smoke inhalation.
There are reportedly more. Last November in California, three college students died trapped inside a Cybertruck after it caught fire. The same month, five people in Wisconsin died inside a Model S. The cluster of bodies in the front seat suggested to the detective they may have struggled to escape.
Then, this spring in LA, a star college basketball recruit managed to escape only after kicking out a Cybertruck window when it caught fire. “I try to open the door, and the door’s not opening,” Alijah Arenas said. He was placed in a medically induced coma due to extensive smoke inhalation.
Bloomberg discovered that the NHTSA has received over 140 complaints about stuck Tesla doors since 2018. The regulator cited nine “failure reports” that led it to probe the company. In four cases, the people resorted to breaking the window. “Entrapment in a vehicle is particularly concerning in emergency situations, such as when children are entrapped in a hot vehicle,” NHTSA said.
U.S. regulators just launched an investigation into faulty door handles on certain Tesla cars, after receiving several reports of exterior handles glitching and leaving children trapped inside.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tuesday that it’s opening a preliminary probe into Tesla’s electrically powered door handles, focusing on 2021 Model Y vehicles. The review covers nearly 175,000 cars and will gauge how widespread and serious the problem is.
“At this time, NHTSA’s investigation is focused on the operability of the electronic door locks from outside of the vehicle as that circumstance is the only one in which there is no manual way to open the door,” the regulator said on its website. “The agency will continue to monitor any reports of entrapment involving opening doors from inside of the vehicle, and ODI [Office of Defects Investigation (ODI)] will take further action as needed.”
The probe comes just days after an investigation from Bloomberg revealed multiple cases in which people were hurt or even died when Teslas lost power—typically after crashes—and their doors wouldn’t open. Bloomberg reports that the NHTSA has received over 140 complaints since 2018 about Tesla doors sticking, not opening, or otherwise failing.
This is also the NHTSA’s third active probe into Tesla vehicles. The agency is already investigating the safety of the company’s Full Self-Driving and driver-assistance systems. The NHTSA said it opened this new investigation after receiving nine reports of people being unable to open the doors on 2021 Model Y cars from the outside.
The agency said the most common scenario involved parents stepping out of a car to put a child in or take a child out of the back seat. When they tried to get back in, the doors wouldn’t open.
The agency noted that Tesla vehicles do have manual door releases inside, but a child might not be able to reach or know how to use them. In four of these reports, people resorted to breaking a window to get back into the car.
The agency called the defect especially concerning because it could trap people in an emergency, like young children left in a hot car.
The agency also said that the defect seems to happen when the electronic door locks don’t get enough power from the car. Available repair invoices show that the car’s low-voltage battery was replaced following the incidents; however, none of the reports mention drivers ever seeing a low-voltage battery warning beforehand.
Although the Tesla Owner’s Manual explains a multi-step process to restore power to electronic door locks using an external 12-volt source, it may be difficult to use in an emergency.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.
In April, movement on a 2024 lawsuit involving AI, Tesla, Warner Bros., and the production company behind Blade Runner 2049 caught the attention of sci-fi fans. Today, there’s an update that skews in favor of Warner Bros.
Alcon Entertainment, which produced the 2017 Denis Villeneuve film and has the Prime Video Blade Runner 2099 series on the way, alleged that promotional material used at an October 2024 Tesla event very closely resembled stills from that film.
Those concerns were further heightened by the fact that Alcon had asked Warner Bros., which distributes its films and was partnering with Tesla for a “robotaxi” or “Cybercab” unveiling, not to allow the use of Blade Runner 2049 imagery as part of the event.
The ensuing lawsuit alleges that Tesla circumvented that request by feeding Blade Runner 2049 stills into an AI image generator, and that’s what was eventually used to backdrop the Tesla presentation.
The lawsuit touches on several complicated issues, including, as the Hollywood Reporter points out, “whether the creation of a visual by an AI image generator by copying a portion of a copyrighted work without a license constitutes copyright infringement.” That’s one of the as-yet undecided issues in the ongoing proceedings.
As THR reports, now dismissed are “claims seeking to hold Warner Bros. Discovery responsible for Tesla’s use of the photos” as well as “another claim alleging that Warner Bros. Discovery had a duty to stop Tesla from infringing Alcon’s intellectual property.”
However, “Warner Bros. Discovery still faces a claim for contributory infringement, which accuses the studio of facilitating the alleged misconduct.”
You can read more about the lawsuit in THR; the complexities of this specific case, however, are coming at a time when Hollywood is facing issues centered on AI’s encroachment of intellectual property on an unprecedented scale.
Earlier this month, we learned that Warner Bros. joined Disney and Universal in filing a lawsuit against Midjourney; as Variety reported, the allegations accuse “the AI image-generating platform of blatant copyright violations” involving copyrighted WB characters.
We don’t know yet how Alcon, which (per THR) has one more try to “fix claims for direct and vicarious copyright infringement,” will ultimately fare in its legal fight. But even if Warner Bros. ends up overcoming the remaining claims in this case, it seems the studio has now taken new interest in protecting its library from copyright infringement with generative AI elsewhere.
Denholm, who was also on the special committee that put the compensation proposal together, argued that Musk needs to be motivated by extraordinary challenges tied to extraordinary compensation. At the same time, she suggested he’s less interested in the additional wealth that the promised Tesla shares would represent, and more in the voting power.
“I think it’s a little bit weird talking about the dollars when it’s actually the voting influence,” said Denholm, whom The Times described as “occasionally appearing ill at ease” during the interview.
It might also seem counterintuitive to offer such a massive pay package when Tesla’s profits and vehicle sales are falling, but Denholm insisted that the plan is about “future performance.”
“It’s not about past performance,” she said. “He gets nothing if he doesn’t perform against the goals.”
Tesla (TSLA) shares ripped higher on Friday, extending a multi-day rally fuelled by renewed investor excitement around billionaire CEO Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence ambitions.
The chief executive’s recent remarks about TSLA’s future value being driven by humanoid robots have reignited speculative interest, with traders betting on long-term upside.
Despite concerns of slowing electric vehicle sales and an elevated valuation, Tesla stock is currently up some 80% versus its year-to-date low in early April.
www.barchart.com
The recent surge in TSLA stock reflect investors’ belief that a focus on humanoid robots could reshape the company’s narrative.
Earlier this month, Musk said “80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus” – referring to the Nasdaq-listed firm’s humanoid robot initiative.
With EV growth stagnating and competition intensifying, the billionaire is betting big on artificial intelligence and automation to drive future value.
Tesla aims to scale Optimus production to 1 million units annually within five years, with prototypes already in development. While skeptics question the timeline and commercial viability, Musk’s track record of bold execution has investors intrigued.
If Optimus delivers even a fraction of its promise, TSLA stock could indeed catapult much higher.
Options data from Barchart suggests Tesla shares could move as much as 20% up or down by the end of the year.
Contracts expiring Dec. 19 imply a broad trading range between $316.88 and $472, reflecting meaningful room to the upside. Moreover, the expected move through Sept. 26 is 7.13%, according to options pricing, with a projected range of $366.33 to $422.55.
Given the recent rally and investor enthusiasm around Musk’s artificial intelligence roadmap, the upper bound appears more likely.
The options data suggests traders are pricing in continued momentum in TSLA shares. However, with the EV stock already trading at stretched valuation, the bullish sentiment may be driven more by narrative than near-term catalysts.
That said, the market evidently is leaning into Musk’s vision, at least for now.
Wall Street’s recommendation on Tesla stock, however, is in stark contrast with what the options data suggests.
The consensus rating on TSLA shares currently sits at “Hold” only with a mean target of roughly $300 indicating potential downside of 23% from here.
www.barchart.com
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. On the date of publication, the editor did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com
A California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer suffered major injuries Monday afternoon when he was struck by a motorist on Interstate 280 near Los Altos Hills, according to the CHP.
The crash happened around 1:40 p.m. in southbound lanes of I-280 south of Page Mill Road, the CHP said in a news release. At the time, the officer was conducting a traffic break to remove an electric leaf blower that had fallen between the two left lanes.
The emergency lights on the motorcycle were activated, but a driver in a 2026 Tesla Model Y “failed to yield to the officer and crashed into him,” according to the CHP.
The officer was taken to an area hospital with injuries that were considered major but not life-threatening, the CHP said.
The driver stopped at the scene and is cooperating with investigators, according to the CHP. It was not known if the driver was using autopilot or other driving aids at the time of the collision.
The left three lanes of southbound I-280 were closed for an investigation. Around 7:35 p.m., the CHP announced two of the closed lanes were open. There was no estimated time to reopen the last lane.
It has been a rough stretch for Tesla. The once-dominant electric-car company has seen plummeting sales across multiple continents. It faces tough competition from an explosion of sophisticated electric-vehicle manufacturers in China. The Cybertruck, its only major model release in recent years, has been a flop. And Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act kills federal tax credits for EVs and kneecaps Tesla’s profitable business of selling emissions credits. Perhaps most worryingly for Tesla, a good portion of its customer base has come to loathe the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, especially after he helped bankroll President Donald Trump’s victory in November last year, then spearheaded DOGE, which was chaotically implemented and resulted in thousands of federal layoffs and the near-destruction of USAID among other consequences.
Musk has undoubtedly done damage to the company he fashioned into a powerhouse; his reputation is a major driver of Tesla’s weak sales. Yet Tesla’s board dearly wants him to be more involved, not less. Last week, it offered Musk a compensation package that would make the richest man on earth significantly richer if he hits a series of audacious sales and profit targets. So where does this all leave a pioneering company that has become as divisive as almost any in America? For insight on that question, I spoke with Garrett Nelson, a senior analyst at the investment firm CFRA Research, who specializes in the auto industry.
You were quite bullish on Tesla’s future just a few months ago, predicting that the company was well positioned for Trump’s tariffs and that it would be a big winner this year in the market generally. But you’ve been significantly more bearish recently. A couple weeks ago, you said there would be no upside for Tesla’s stock in the next 12 months or so. What has changed in the interim? I think the biggest thing is the bill that was passed on July 4 and the implications for Tesla with the federal tax credits going away. Even more significantly for them, it’s the change to the CAFE standards — the federal fuel standards. This has been a very significant bottom-line driver for the company for years. It was about $2.8 billion in revenue last year, up 54 percent over the year before. It’s been a very fast-growing and extremely high-margin revenue source because there’s no cost associated with it — it’s just them selling emissions credits to other automakers who haven’t met the same standards under the corporate average fuel economy.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration immediately stopped issuing noncompliance letters for violating that as soon as the bill was signed into law, so the revenue stream will be going away. And when I look at earnings and the trajectory of where I think estimates are going, it doesn’t look like they’ve accounted for that. Elon Musk’s admission on the last earnings call that we might be in for a few rough quarters was refreshing for us to hear because that’s kind of the way that we see it, and the primary reason why we turned more bearish, or less bullish — we have a “hold” on the stock here. But it’s also the market-share losses, not only in the U.S. market but in Europe and in China as well — the three major global auto markets. They just really haven’t recovered that lost market share, and they’re losing ground to other major EV manufacturers, such as BYD in China.
It does not seem like a positive picture right now. Yeah. So our concerns are about the near-term and the intermediate-term earnings. We are still positive looking out longer term, five to ten years down the road, because they are focused on higher growth, high-tech areas of the economy, increasingly involved in robotics. They continue to make strides with the Robotaxi autonomous driving software. There’s a lot of R&D that’s happening at the company that I think will pay off over the longer term. But in light of the huge rebound the stock has had since April and an evaluation that we view as really bordering on the full side, it’s hard to justify this stock trading at what we view as well over 100 times next year’s earnings estimates on estimates that we think are still too high — so actually trading at much higher multiples than that when accounting for where we think estimates are going to be revised to in the near future.
The car business is only a part of what Tesla is doing. Musk recently said that about 80 percent of the company’s value would come from Optimus, its humanoid robots, and predicted that they would turn Tesla into a $25 trillion company. He has a long history of making these kinds of forecasts, and many of them don’t pan out, but he also has a long history of defying people’s gloomy predictions. Do you see anything backing up this kind of hype for these humanoid robots at this point, or is it more just that you and other investors have some faith in the company and him to make this happen? I think he has a track record. If you look at his 2018 compensation plan, at the time no one thought that he could actually hit those milestones, and he did. The stock has performed very well over the long term, over the last five to ten years. And I think that’s why investors have such confidence in him. The proxy being issued, and this new compensation plan announced — it’s very ambitious.
That’s an understatement. The market cap would essentially have to increase almost tenfold for him to meet all the criteria, to get the full award of about 12 percent additional stake in the company, which would bring his stake to about 25 percent. But I was following the company back in 2018, and people said the same thing. And at that point, the company, by Musk’s own admission, was just about a month away from bankruptcy. Tesla is in a much different state today financially. They have an investment-grade balance sheet, which is the exception, not the rule, if you look across the auto industry. And they’re sitting on about $37 billion of net cash.
On robotics, the big question in our view is about the competition. There are other robotics companies right now that are showing technological capabilities that are similar, if not better, than what Tesla has shown so far with Optimus. There are a lot of companies in China working on the same thing. So, I think the concerns are similar to the concerns about the car business, where Tesla has in a lot of ways been surpassed by some of the Chinese companies, and that’s why their market share has fallen so significantly over the last couple years. They’re now the fifth-largest or fifth best-selling EV manufacturer in China. In 2013, they were No. 2.
The other big part of Tesla’s business that we haven’t really touched on is autonomous vehicles. And that’s another area where it seems to be lagging behind the market leaders, like Waymo. I don’t necessarily think they’re behind Waymo. I think Waymo is geographically in more areas than Tesla is right now. But Tesla has a very significant competitive advantage. What they’re using to develop their autonomous driving is much different and much less expensive. Waymo vehicles use LiDAR. Tesla’s approach is basically cameras and a global neural network that’s highly dependent on AI, essentially creating a global mapping system.
And we know Tesla has annual production capacities of over 2 million vehicles a year. Waymo hasn’t disclosed their capacity to our knowledge, but we think Tesla has significant advantages that will become clearer as they continue to expand to other markets aside from just Austin and the Bay Area. I think investors recognize that, and I think it is reflected in the stock’s performance, which continues to move higher. When I talk with clients and shareholders, there is a recognition that Tesla has really significant advantages over Waymo and other companies, and that’s a significant market opportunity that we estimate to be north of $5 trillion globally.
Tesla depends so much on just one guy. Obviously he’s made himself toxic to a lot of people with his far-right views and his close involvement in the Trump administration. That’s a big part of why the sales slump is happening. And yet, the company seems to be hanging a lot of its hopes on getting him more involved, as with this pay package. But does he seem like the same guy to you as he was in 2018? Back then he said he defied all these predictions, but he was much more focused on his companies. Even though he’s not in the Trump administration anymore, he still tweets all day about immigration ruining the world and so on. How do you price something like that in? I think the increased political activism has really had an impact on the company’s financials. Going back to just over a year ago, I think last July, when he endorsed Trump and he then became the largest Republican donor in the 2024 election cycle, alienated or left a bad taste in the mouth for a lot of left-leaning consumers. That had an immediate impact on their sales and on their earnings.
Not just left-leaning consumers, but really most of the market base for Teslas. That’s right. Well, he did pick up some consumers on the right, but then more recently he alienated a lot of those consumers when he got in this tiff with the president. So he’s now alienated consumers across the political spectrum. That’s another big concern we’ve had, and another reason why we lowered our rating on the stock. There’s been significant brand damage, and I don’t know where that leaves the brand, but every data point that we get is not positive in terms of their sales when you look at their market share compared to other companies. It’s something we’ve seen across the consumer space with other companies. When they get involved in a hot-button issue or take sides in terms of politics, it turns off a lot of consumers. There was Anheuser-Busch InBev with the Bud Light debacle, and more recently another company I follow, Harley-Davidson, and the Cracker Barrel thing just a couple weeks ago.
I think the difference is that there’s no face of Cracker Barrel who’s tweeting all day and who killed a bunch of government programs. I could see a future where there’s competing autonomous-vehicle brands here in New York City, and nobody would want to take a Tesla because they hate him so much. And that’s the big issue. There’s arguably no executive that is more the face of a brand in the world. Elon Musk is the face of the Tesla brand, and that’s problematic, in our view. It’s done damage to the brand and we haven’t seen signs of a recovery from that. It’s going to take time.
But I would expect the pay package to be approved pretty easily because it aligns Musk’s interests with the interests of shareholders. The amounts of money — it’s unprecedented. A package like this has never been seen before when you talk about the $7.5 trillion required to hit all of the 12 tranches. I think you’re seeing the stock trade higher because shareholders recognize that if he is able to deliver on all of these thresholds, then investors will do very well. He essentially has to double the market cap of where Tesla is today to even hit the first threshold. That requires a doubling of the stock price from here, even after the company’s value has already moved up so much. And if that doesn’t happen, he gets paid nothing. There’s no salary, no bonuses.
The guy has more than $400 billion already, so is another several hundred billion going to be the thing that incentivizes him when he seems more driven by ideological concerns than financial ones? When he left DOGE, that was viewed as a big positive. This would essentially keep him locked in for the next decade. And he said he was going to form this third political party but has backed off, which I think is another big positive. And I think this really locks him in for the next decade if it were to be approved, as we expect that it will be.
Would the company without him be significantly different, do you think? Would Tesla still be Tesla? In our view, his presence at the company is a significant component of the value of the company — just his presence. We estimate roughly 30 percent of the value of the company is Elon Musk. So if something were to happen, if he were to leave the company, or get fired, I think you would see a very significant hit to the value of the company, just because there’s this perception that he’s going to continue to deliver and create value for shareholders by diversifying into these industries where maybe Tesla isn’t involved in today, such as robotics, and he’s going to create value for shareholders over the long term in a way that other executives would not be able to.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tesla has proposed a massive new $1 trillion compensation package for its CEO Elon Musk, and many of the benchmarks he needs to hit are simply watered-down versions of promises he’s spent years making about the company.
That’s not the picture Tesla’s board of directors paints in the company’s annual proxy statement, where they revealed the proposed pay package. Instead, the board focuses on how it plans to create “the most valuable company in history.”
To be sure, if Tesla accomplishes all that it aims for with this deal, it will look like a much different company at the end of the 10-year period it covers. That doesn’t change the fact that the milestones the company is asking Musk to aim for are less ambitious than his own previously-stated goals.
While the unprecedented pay package still needs to be approved by shareholders at a meeting in November, it’s easy to see the company’s fervent fan base voting “yes.” Previous votes on Musk’s compensation have been overwhelmingly approved by Tesla’s shareholders.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at what Musk needs to accomplish in order to receive the full payout.
Musk spentyears claiming Tesla would be able to make 20 million electric vehicles per year by 2030. This was back when he and his company were still promising to grow at a rate of 50% each year.
But Tesla walked away from those promises as sales growth stalled, and then reversed in 2024. The company then pulled the 20-million-per-year goal from its impact report last year, and stopped building a planned factory in Mexico that would have increased production.
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Now, the first “product goal” that Tesla’s board of directors laid out for Musk to achieve on his path to becoming a trillionaire is to deliver 20 million vehicles total. Tesla has already sold eight million cars to date, and even with sales slumping, is moving just shy of 2 million per year.
With the new pay package being laid out over a 10-year period, that means the target has gone from 20 million EVs per year by 2030 to just 20 million total by 2035.
A Tesla Cybercab prototype at a Tesla store in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the robotaxi, which has no steering wheel or pedals, could cost less than $30,000 and “probably” will go into production in 2026. Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergImage Credits:David Paul Morris/Bloomberg / Getty Images
One million robotaxis*
One of Musk’s most infamous and outrageous promises about Tesla came in 2019, when he claimed that the company would have one million robotaxis on the road in 2020. It’s now 2025, and Tesla has only just begun to trial a robotaxi service in Austin, Texas that has, at most, around 20 or 30 cars with safety drivers on board.
To access his full proposed pay package, Tesla is asking Musk to help the company realize an altered version of that promise, as another product goal listed is to have “1 million Robotaxis in Commercial Operation.”
It’s a goal with caveats. The fine print shows that Tesla is only requiring there to be a “daily average aggregate” of one million robotaxis “commercially operated by or on behalf of [Tesla] over a consecutive three-month period, as part of a transportation service.”
Tesla goes on to define “Robotaxi” as any Tesla vehicle, including but not limited to the purpose-built “Cybercab” it’s developing, that is using the company’s Full Self-Driving software to offer rides to people.
This includes customer-owned vehicles, which is another thing Musk has long promised but never delivered. He’s spent years claiming that Tesla could flip a digital switch and turn existing vehicles into fully-autonomous ones, and that owners could add and subtract those vehicles to a larger robotaxi fleet at will.
Musk sees Tesla’s future being all about the humanoid robot that it’s developing, called Optimus. Just this week he claimed it could make up as much as 80% of the company’s future revenue.
As he became increasingly focused on Optimus, Musk made some pretty wild promises about what that future would look like. One of his core claims was that Tesla will be making one million Optimus bots per year by as early as 2029.
And yet, Tesla’s board is only asking Musk to deliver one million “bots” total as part of this proposed compensation plan. Tesla also defines “bots” as “any robot or other physical product with mobility using artificial intelligence manufactured by or on behalf of the Company” — though the company’s vehicles do not count.
The directors seem to agree that Optimus has “the potential to be Tesla’s bestselling product,” and they say it reperesents “the clearest example of how Tesla has the ability to make autonomy benefit all of humanity.”
But the board also notes that “commercialization plans” for Optimus are “still in development,” and Musk now has until 2035 to reach the one million mark.
Image Credits:Tesla India / X
Everything else
The fourth and final product goal Musk has to achieve is to notch 10 million active subscriptions to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. It’s arguably the most ambitious product goal. The company does not say how many current owners have paid for FSD, though executives have recently said the adoption rate is in the “teens.” At best, that means anywhere from a few hundred thousand to the low millions of Tesla vehicles have the software installed.
Everything else Tesla’s board is asking of Musk is tied to money. Ultimately, Musk needs to help Tesla reach an $8.5 trillion valuation in order to unlock the full value of the compensation package and become a trillionaire himself.
Musk already had grand designs to accomplish something similar. He has often claimed that Tesla could one day become more valuable than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined. At their current valuations, those two companies are collectively worth around $5.5 trillion. But earlier this year, the CEO claimed Tesla could be worth more than the next five most-valuable companies combined — which at the time meant he was aiming closer to the $15 trillion mark.
Along with the goal of blowing up Tesla’s valuation, Musk is being asked to increase the company’s earnings to, essentially, $400 billion per year — an enormous figure compared to last year’s earnings of around $17 billion.
Lastly, Tesla’s board has asked for two notable assurances from Musk in order to unlock the full value of the compensation package. One is that he must work with the company to develop a plan for how he will be succeeded as CEO of Tesla (and the plan essentially locks him to the company for at least 7.5 years).
The other, buried in a footnote, is that Tesla received “assurances that Musk’s involvement with the political sphere would wind down in a timely manner.”
Taken as a whole, it’s a complex agreement with lots of truly pie-in-the-sky ideas about where Tesla could go under Musk’s leadership over the next decade. The same was said about the previous compensation deal that Tesla struck with Musk back in 2018, and yet the company hit all of those seemingly-outrageous goals. (Musk’s award was ultimately dusted by Delaware’s Chancery Court.)
Still, it’s hard not to notice just how much these new goals appear to come from the company trying to drag its CEO’s promises back down to Earth.
Tesla launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, earlier this summer, but it’s unclear whether the vehicles driving around the city are technologically advanced enough to count towards that 1 million robotaxi goal. (The proposal specifies that the robotaxis must not have a “human driver,” and the vehicles in Texas have safety monitors sitting in their front passenger seats for city rides, and in the driver’s seats for highway trips.)
Meanwhile, the company is reportedly falling well short of its current goal to produce 5,000 units of Optimus, its humanoid robot, by the end of this year, having only produced a few hundred. Musk has said that Optimus could one day revolutionize the global economy by replacing the majority of human labor, but The Information reported in July that the Optimus team was having particular trouble with the robot’s hands. The company’s vice president of Optimus robotics, a nine-year Tesla veteran, left in June.
“For Musk to receive the full pay package, Tesla will need to be the leader of autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots in a number of countries,” says Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, a financial services firm.
Musk’s past pay packages have been unconventional, and controversial. Unlike other CEOs, Musk does not receive annual compensation or incentives, but is instead paid according to Tesla’s long-term performance. His 2018 pay package, worth more than $50 billion, is still in legal limbo after a shareholder lawsuit accusing the Tesla board of insufficient transparency and independence led to a Delaware judge striking it down last year. (Tesla responded by reincorporating in Texas.) The board granted Musk an interim $29 billion stock award last month.
The proposal demonstrates that, despite his controversial moves, Tesla’s board sees Musk as a crucial part of the automaker’s success, and that the Musk era is far from over. “This new pay package should keep Elon Musk at Tesla for at least the next decade,” says Goldstein.
The package’s goals double down on the messages of Tesla’s “Master Plan Part IV,” a lofty mission statement posted this week exclusively on X, Musk’s social platform. Tesla’s Master Plans were once cheeky blogs posted directly by Musk onto Tesla’s website, complete with back-of-the-envelope energy cost calculations. The new plan points to Tesla’s more civilizational ambitions. “Autonomy must benefit all of humanity,” one section reads; “Greater access drives greater growth,” reads another, complete with renderings of Optimus robots serving cocktails and watering plants.
But if Musk wants to change the world and make his trillion, he’ll have to stay in his lane—and out of President Donald Trump’s, for whom he once served as “First Buddy”. The board-run committee that put together the pay proposal has met with Musk 10 times since February, the Tesla board wrote in its filing. Among other things, the filing reads, the committee received “assurances that Musk’s involvement with the political sphere would wind down in a timely manner.”
It’s September 2025, and things are looking peachy keen. Sure, the US job market has taken a nosedive. And yeah, only one in four Americans believes they have a good chance of improving their standard of living. But hey, Tesla’s board has proposed a pay package that could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. What really matters is that someone is having a good time, right?
Tesla’s board laid out what’s by far the biggest CEO compensation package in history on Friday. It reads like the ultimate dangled carrot for a leader who is both driven by wealth and power and also prone to distraction.
The compensation plan is based on performance metrics that, at least for now, seem far-fetched. First, the Tesla leader would have to remain at the company for seven and a half years to cash in any shares. To receive the full payout, he’d have to stay for a full decade. Musk also runs a rocket company and an AI company (which also operates the former Twitter, aka X). So, above all else, the proposal is designed to keep his attention on the company that made him the world’s richest person.
For Musk to receive the full payout of around $900 billion, Musk would have to increase Tesla’s market value to $8.5 trillion. It’s worth about $1.1 trillion today. Other performance requirements include deploying a million Tesla robotaxis and a million AI robots. Musk would also be incentivized to participate in the company’s long-term CEO succession plans. The package also includes structural protections to minimize stock price volatility, which the company has become well-acquainted with in 2025.
Tesla recalled virtually all Cybertrucks earlier this year.
(Tesla)
“We believe that Elon’s singular vision is vital to navigating this critical inflection point,” Tesla board leaders Robyn Denholm and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson wrote in the shareholder letter. “We also recognize the formidable nature of this undertaking and, as a result, the importance of having a leader who is not only willing and capable but eager to meet this challenge. Simply put, retaining and incentivizing Elon is fundamental to Tesla achieving these goals and becoming the most valuable company in history.”
Denholm and Wilson-Thompson implied the package was at least partly motivated by the CEO threatening to jump ship. “Mr. Musk also raised the possibility that he may pursue other interests that may afford him greater influence if he did not receive such assurances,” they wrote. “Ultimately, the Special Committee believed it to be critical to Tesla to secure Mr. Musk’s commitment and focus to lead Tesla.”
Tesla shareholders will have to approve the pay package. They’re expected to vote on it on November 6. A Delaware judge struck down a (similarly performance-based) 2018 package, and Tesla appealed. The new plan, if approved, would replace the older one if the appeal fails.
If Musk hit all of the required benchmarks, his stake in Tesla would grow from 13 percent to 29 percent. Who says the American Dream isn’t alive and well?
Elon Musk, already the world’s richest person, could become the first trillionaire after the Tesla board unveiled a massive new pay package for its CEO to keep his focus on the troubled EV maker.The package would grant him additional shares of Tesla stock if the company is able to grow far beyond its current value, with a market capitalization far greater than any company has ever approached. Musk’s previous pay package, which added significantly to his massive wealth, also laid out ambitious growth plans that once appeared to be a reach – but which Tesla proved able to reach easily.The new pay package could grant Musk 423.7 million additional shares of Tesla stock. Those shares would be worth $143.5 billion at today’s stock value.But Musk would get those shares only if the value of Tesla stock increases significantly in coming years. The company stock would need to reach an overall value of $8.5 trillion for Musk to get all the shares, significantly above the current market capitalization of $1.1 trillion and roughly double the current market value of Nvidia (NVDA), the current most-valuable company on the market.The company’s proxy statement that laid out Musk’s payment plan also included a shareholder proposal that Tesla take a stake in privately-held xAI, the artificial intelligence company that Musk also owns. That could help Elon Musk further consolidate his growing business empire.XAI recently purchased X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk bought for $44 billion of his own money in 2022. The company did not take a position for or against that shareholder proposal, which does not give any details of how large a stake Tesla should take in xAI, and at what price.Musk currently owns 410 million shares of Tesla shares, worth $139 billion at Thursday’s closing price. That stake, along with his stakes in xAI, rocket company SpaceX, and several other companies he has started and runs, have made him the richest person on the planet, worth $378 billion according to Bloomberg’s billionaire tracker.He currently has options to buy an additional 304 million shares of Tesla, but a judge in Delaware has twice struck down that 2018 pay package that granted him those options as illegal. Those rulings came despite overwhelming approval by Tesla shareholders – twice. The company again has tried to grant those options to Musk this year, and adding in those options, he now owns 18% of the company’s shares.Tesla shares nearly doubled in value to a record-high price for its shares between election day and mid-December 2024, as investors bet that his close ties to President Donald Trump would be a boon for Tesla. But as Tesla faced protests and dropping sales and falling profits in backlash to those ties (before he had a falling out with Trump), all those things resulted in Tesla’s stock losing those gains. The shares have recovered some of those losses, but they are still down 26% from the December peak.Still, Musk and his fans on Wall Street have insisted the company is well positioned to grow even larger and more successful in the future. He has continued to predict that his plans for self-driving cars – including a robotaxi service – will create massive profits and value for shareholders. The robotaxis would provide rides to passengers and also allow Tesla owners to rent out their cars for driverless rides when not in use.Musk has also promised a line of humanoid robots that could bring in even more sales than Tesla’s car business.“It’s a big pay package but Tesla needs to keep its biggest asset in Musk as CEO,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNN Friday. Ives is one of the bigger Tesla bulls on Wall Street.“In this AI era Musk now will drive its next leg of growth,” Ives added. “The Board had a $1 trillion dollar decision and made the right one.”The board’s proxy statement spoke of the importance of keeping Musk focused on Tesla going forward. In addition to his many business interests, he remains active in politics, despite his falling out with President Trump. He has announced plans to form a third political party.Tesla, in its proxy statement, warned that it needed to incentivize Musk to focus his attention on growing the company. It said that during the negotiations on the pay package, “Musk also raised the possibility that he may pursue other interests that may afford him greater influence if he did not receive such assurances.”The board said it “believes that Mr. Musk singularly possesses the leadership characteristics necessary to transform Tesla and realize its long-term mission at an unparalleled level.”But, so far, those big ambitions have all been grand claims from a man and company that have often fallen short of their promises. Tesla is facing growing competition from Chinese EV makers. BYD, one of those Chinese automakers, is poised to pass Tesla for the most EV sales worldwide, even though it is not available for sale in the United States.Tesla also faces competition from other companies that are ahead of it in providing robotaxi services, including Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit of Google parent Alphabet, which has its own service and has partnered with Uber in some cities.Shares of Tesla (TSLA) were slightly higher in premarket trading on the news.
Elon Musk, already the world’s richest person, could become the first trillionaire after the Tesla board unveiled a massive new pay package for its CEO to keep his focus on the troubled EV maker.
The package would grant him additional shares of Tesla stock if the company is able to grow far beyond its current value, with a market capitalization far greater than any company has ever approached. Musk’s previous pay package, which added significantly to his massive wealth, also laid out ambitious growth plans that once appeared to be a reach – but which Tesla proved able to reach easily.
The new pay package could grant Musk 423.7 million additional shares of Tesla stock. Those shares would be worth $143.5 billion at today’s stock value.
But Musk would get those shares only if the value of Tesla stock increases significantly in coming years. The company stock would need to reach an overall value of $8.5 trillion for Musk to get all the shares, significantly above the current market capitalization of $1.1 trillion and roughly double the current market value of Nvidia (NVDA), the current most-valuable company on the market.
The company’s proxy statement that laid out Musk’s payment plan also included a shareholder proposal that Tesla take a stake in privately-held xAI, the artificial intelligence company that Musk also owns. That could help Elon Musk further consolidate his growing business empire.
XAI recently purchased X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk bought for $44 billion of his own money in 2022. The company did not take a position for or against that shareholder proposal, which does not give any details of how large a stake Tesla should take in xAI, and at what price.
Musk currently owns 410 million shares of Tesla shares, worth $139 billion at Thursday’s closing price. That stake, along with his stakes in xAI, rocket company SpaceX, and several other companies he has started and runs, have made him the richest person on the planet, worth $378 billion according to Bloomberg’s billionaire tracker.
He currently has options to buy an additional 304 million shares of Tesla, but a judge in Delaware has twice struck down that 2018 pay package that granted him those options as illegal. Those rulings came despite overwhelming approval by Tesla shareholders – twice. The company again has tried to grant those options to Musk this year, and adding in those options, he now owns 18% of the company’s shares.
Tesla shares nearly doubled in value to a record-high price for its shares between election day and mid-December 2024, as investors bet that his close ties to President Donald Trump would be a boon for Tesla. But as Tesla faced protests and dropping sales and falling profits in backlash to those ties (before he had a falling out with Trump), all those things resulted in Tesla’s stock losing those gains. The shares have recovered some of those losses, but they are still down 26% from the December peak.
Still, Musk and his fans on Wall Street have insisted the company is well positioned to grow even larger and more successful in the future. He has continued to predict that his plans for self-driving cars – including a robotaxi service – will create massive profits and value for shareholders. The robotaxis would provide rides to passengers and also allow Tesla owners to rent out their cars for driverless rides when not in use.
Musk has also promised a line of humanoid robots that could bring in even more sales than Tesla’s car business.
“It’s a big pay package but Tesla needs to keep its biggest asset in Musk as CEO,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNN Friday. Ives is one of the bigger Tesla bulls on Wall Street.
“In this AI era Musk now will drive its next leg of growth,” Ives added. “The Board had a $1 trillion dollar decision and made the right one.”
The board’s proxy statement spoke of the importance of keeping Musk focused on Tesla going forward. In addition to his many business interests, he remains active in politics, despite his falling out with President Trump. He has announced plans to form a third political party.
Tesla, in its proxy statement, warned that it needed to incentivize Musk to focus his attention on growing the company. It said that during the negotiations on the pay package, “Musk also raised the possibility that he may pursue other interests that may afford him greater influence if he did not receive such assurances.”
The board said it “believes that Mr. Musk singularly possesses the leadership characteristics necessary to transform Tesla and realize its long-term mission at an unparalleled level.”
But, so far, those big ambitions have all been grand claims from a man and company that have often fallen short of their promises. Tesla is facing growing competition from Chinese EV makers. BYD, one of those Chinese automakers, is poised to pass Tesla for the most EV sales worldwide, even though it is not available for sale in the United States.
Tesla also faces competition from other companies that are ahead of it in providing robotaxi services, including Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit of Google parent Alphabet, which has its own service and has partnered with Uber in some cities.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) were slightly higher in premarket trading on the news.
Tesla’s board is asking shareholders to approve a new pay package for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth up to $1 trillion in a decade, representing one of the richest compensation packages in corporate history.
According to a regulatory filing published Friday, the electric car maker’s board wants to award Musk about 423 million shares, which today have a value of $143 billion, if the company hits certain profitability, production and market capitalization milestones.
To earn the full pay package, Tesla would have to reach a market cap of $8.5 trillion — about eight times its current value — in 10 years. At that level, the stock awarded to Musk would be worth more than $1 trillion.
Tesla would also need to hit certain operational targets for Musk to collect the full pay package. Those include delivering 20 million vehicles; producing 1 million of the automaker’s self-driving “robotaxis”; and manufacturing 1 million of the company’s humanoid robots, dubbed Optimus, which are currently under development.
The proposed new compensation scheme “represents a critical next step to keep Musk as CEO at least until 2030,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a report, adding that Tesla is “heading into one of the most important stages of its growth cycle with the autonomous and robotics future now on the doorstep.”
The entrepreneur’s previous compensation has drawn legal challenges. In 2018, Tesla investors filed a lawsuit challenging Musk’s $56 billion pay package, alleging that he and the company’s board had breached their fiduciary duties. In December, a Delaware judge ordered the company to revoke that award.
In August, Tesla said it was granting Musk shares totaling around $29 billion.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
Tesla is granting CEO Elon Musk shares totaling around $29 billion, the company announced Monday.
The new pay package for the tech billionaire, which consists of 96 million shares of restricted stock, was approved by the Tesla board on Sunday, the company said in a regulatory filing.
The award comes just six months after a Delaware judge ordered the company to revoke his $56 billion pay package from 2018.
Musk appealed the order in March. A month later, Tesla said in a regulatory filing that it was creating a special committee to look at Musk’s compensation as CEO. Creating this new compensation will ensure Musk stays as CEO of Tesla for next several years and alleviate some Tesla shareholder concerns, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
“We believe this grant will now keep Musk as CEO of Tesla at least until 2030 and removes an overhang on the stock,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a research note. The grant will motivate Musk to lead the company through an “inflection point,” as Tesla transitions to an AI-first company, he added.
Equal to 2018 pay package
The electric vehicle maker said in a regulatory filing on Monday that Musk must first pay Tesla $23.34 per share of restricted stock that vests, which is equal to the exercise price per share of the 2018 pay package that was awarded to the company’s CEO.
After that pay package was initially approved, a Tesla stockholder challenged it in a lawsuit, leading to a legal showdown.
In a December 2024 ruling, Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick reaffirmed an earlier ruling that Tesla must revoke Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package. She found that Musk engineered the landmark pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent.
At the time McCormick also rejected an equally unprecedented and massive fee request by plaintiff attorneys, who argued that they were entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion. The judge said the attorneys were entitled to a fee award of $345 million.
According to the regulatory filing, if the Delaware courts reinstate Musk’s 2018 pay package, the $29 billion award would be “immediately forfeited and returned to the Company.”
Tesla stock troubles
Tesla shares have plunged 25% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Donald Trump. But Tesla also faces intensifying competition from both the big Detroit automakers, and from China.
In its most recent quarter, Tesla reported that quarterly profits plunged from $1.39 billion to $409 million. Revenue also plummeted and the company fell short of even lowered expectations on Wall Street.
Under pressure from shareholders last month, Tesla scheduled an annual shareholders meeting for November to comply with Texas state law.
A group of more than 20 Tesla shareholders, which have watched Tesla shares plummet, said in a letter to the company that it needed to at least provide public notice of the annual meeting.
Investors have grown increasingly worried about the trajectory of the company after Musk had spent so much time in Washington this year, becoming one of the most prominent officials in the Trump administrationas the head of the Department of Government Government Efficiency, or DOGE, overseeing mass federal layoffs.
Tesla has proposed a new 10-year compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion even as the EV maker’s car business stumbles and it sets its sights on humanoid robotics and AI.
The company has tied the compensation to a number of benchmarks, one of which involves increasing Tesla’s overall valuation from around $1 trillion to more than $8 trillion. The plan would grant Musk more than 423 million additional shares in the company, boosting his level of control to around 25%. Musk has previously threatened to leave Tesla if he didn’t receive more voting power.
The proposal will be voted on by shareholders at Tesla’s annual meeting, which is scheduled for later this year. The details of the plan come just one month after the company announced a $29 billion compensation package meant to make up for a plan that was struck down by a judge in Delaware.
Tesla wrote to shareholders in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company believes the world is at a “critical inflection point” in society, and claims it can usher in an era of “sustainable abundance” by “introducing innovative and affordable technologies at scale.”
“Tesla can help bring about a society that democratizes autonomous goods and services,” the company wrote.
Tesla wrote that Musk’s “singular vision” is “vital” to “navigating this critical inflection point.” It cited the company’s recently-published “Master Plan Part IV,” which it says Musk “unveiled,” even though the CEO barely acknowledged it, except for agreeing that it lacked specifics.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on Wednesday delivered a strong endorsement of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, with a tweet and accompanying video declaring it the “dawn of the physical Agentforce revolution” and a “productivity game-changer” that could transform how businesses operate. His enthusiastic post endorses Tesla’s strategy and Elon Musk’s bold robotics ambitions.
“Elon’s Tesla Optimus is here! Dawn of the physical Agentforce revolution, tackling human work for $200K–$500K. Productivity game-changer!” Benioff wrote on X, adding a personal note: “Congrats @elonmusk, and thank you for always being so kind to me!” The tweet was accompanied by a video showing Benioff interacting directly with one of Tesla’s humanoid robots at the company’s California facility.
The casual exchange captured in the video offers a glimpse into the current capabilities, and limitations, of Tesla’s Optimus. When Benioff asks, “Hey, Optimus. What are you doing there?” the robot responds, “Just chilling, ready to help.” The conversation continues with Benioff requesting directions to find a Coke, to which Optimus replies, “Sorry, I don’t have real-time info, but I can take you to the kitchen if you want to check for a Coke there.” As they prepare to walk together, someone off-camera notes, “We need to give it a bit more room. Right now, it’s kind of paranoid about space. And it’ll be able to walk a lot faster, too.”
You can watch the full exchange below:
Elon’s Tesla Optimus 🤖🔥 is here! Dawn of the physical Agentforce revolution, tackling human work for $200K–$500K. Productivity game-changer! Congrats @elonmusk, and thank you for always being so kind to me! 🚀 #Tesla#Optimuspic.twitter.com/bA5IYIylE1
Tesla shares are holding steady at around $333 as of Thursday morning, but they’re up over 22% over the last six months. On Tuesday, Musk shared Tesla’s so-called “Master Plan Part IV,” which positions Optimus as central to the company’s future: The CEO claims “about 80% of Tesla’s value will eventually come from Optimus,” a projection that would value the robot program at roughly $20 trillion based on Tesla’s current market capitalization.
Musk set ambitious targets early in the year, predicting Tesla would manufacture thousands of Optimus units in 2025 and projecting the project could eventually generate more than $10 trillion in revenue. However, production plans encountered significant headwinds when China implemented export restrictions on rare-earth materials essential for the robots’ movement. During Tesla’s April earnings call, Musk explained a magnet issue was disrupting production timelines, noting that China required assurances the rare-earth magnets would not be used for military purposes, adding that Tesla was working with Beijing to secure the necessary export licenses. Optimus’ production challenges deepened in June when Milan Kovac, who had overseen Tesla’s Optimus development since 2022, stepped down to spend more time with family.
The projected price range for Tesla’s Optimus robot is between $15,000 and $30,000 at launch, with most recent updates suggesting the initial consumer models will be priced around $18,999 to $20,000, depending on features and configuration. Elon Musk and Tesla have publicly targeted keeping the price “under $20,000” for the base version, though more advanced or customized units could cost more.
Production reality check
While Musk’s rhetoric remains ambitious, the practical reality of bringing Optimus to market tells a more complex story. Tesla initially targeted producing 5,000 units by the end of 2025, but has manufactured only hundreds of prototypes so far. And with Kovac, the project’s original head, out, the program is now undergoing significant redesign under the leadership of Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s AI software vice president.
Technical challenges continue to plague the project. According to The Information, engineers have reportedly run into issues with joints overheating, limited battery life, difficulties achieving human-like dexterity in the robot’s hands, and overall efficiency. Tesla has reportedly stockpiled mostly complete robot bodies that are still missing critical components like hands and forearms, while production of these intricate parts lags behind. Meanwhile, current Optimus prototypes deployed in Tesla’s own battery workshops are apparently operating at less than half the efficiency of human workers. The company paused parts procurement in June to redesign core systems, with suppliers indicating the fixes could take months.
Tesla did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
“I’m not just managing human beings—I’m also managing agents, an entirely new type of digital labor,” Benioff said at the Salesforce 2.0 event last December. His vision extends beyond software to encompass robots as “physical manifestations of agents,” positioning companies like Tesla at the forefront of what could potentially be a trillion-dollar market opportunity.
While Musk has increasingly positioned Tesla as an AI and robotics company rather than a traditional automaker, skeptics point to Tesla’s history of ambitious timelines that have consistently been pushed back—I mean, just look at this list. Many of Musk’s previous promises remain unfulfilled. That said, the stakes for Optimus are enormous. If successful, Optimus could revitalize Tesla and revolutionize manufacturing, caregiving, and countless other industries while justifying Tesla’s premium valuation. If production challenges persist, it risks becoming another example of Musk’s tendency to overpromise on breakthrough technologies.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
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Tesla is recalling 7,301 Model Y SUVs produced in 2025, following identification of a software defect in the driver’s side window’s automatic protection system.
The recall, issued by Australia’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, warns that the window may close with excessive force if it fails to detect obstructions, posing a risk of injury.
The latest recall is a perfect example of the dual-edge of automotive digitization, because while software allows for rapid, remote fixes, it also introduces new layers of vulnerability.
Owners and users are also worried about the frequency of Tesla’s software-driven recalls in Australia puts a spotlight on the need for ever-better quality assurance in EV systems.
What do you do if your Tesla is recalled?
Owners of affected vehicles will receive notifications and can expect an over-the-air (OTA) software update, eliminating the need for dealership visits. Cars already running software version 2025.26.6 or newer are not impacted.
This recall mirrors a similar action in the U.S. back in 2022, which involved over 1.1 million Teslas, including Model 3 and Model S units, over an automatic window safety issue.
In March 2025, Tesla also recalled nearly 300 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles in Australia due to a potential loss of power steering, marking this as the second major recall of the year.
Since 2021, Tesla has issued 17 recalls in Australia—most stemming from software glitches rather than hardware defects—highlighting the growing importance and complexity of digital systems in modern vehicles.
Beleaguered electric vehicle company Lucid Motors (LCID) has implemented a reverse stock split, consolidating shares to meet NASDAQ’s $1 minimum trading price and prevent delisting.
As of Friday, Lucid’s share price was down over 96% from its all-time high of $64.86, reached in February 2021.
While this move may protect the company from being removed from the exchange for now, it does little to address the underlying issues plaguing the struggling electric vehicle maker.
Founded in 2014 by former Tesla (TSLA) engineer Peter Rawlinson, Lucid initially aimed to compete in the luxury EV segment with its flagship Air sedan, positioned as a premium rival to Tesla’s Model S.
It had ambitious production targets, initially aiming for 20,000 vehicles in 2022, then 49,000 in 2023, and 90,000 in 2024. But the company struggled to meet demand and in 2024, Lucid delivered just over 10,200 vehicles.
The company’s financials highlight the scale of its challenges, with revenue rising 36% to $808 million in 2024 but net losses widening to $3.1 billion. That is a loss of around $299,000 per vehicle sold.
Lucid has been trying to stay in the game
Multiple price cuts for the Air sedan from around $80,000 to roughly $71,400 reflect ongoing efforts to stay competitive, but the company has limited room for price increases due to high manufacturing costs.
Despite having ample liquidity of about $4.8 billion and expanding manufacturing facilities in Arizona and Saudi Arabia, Lucid’s growth prospects remain uncertain. The company faces stiff competition from Tesla and other automakers, and its delayed launch of the more affordable Gravity SUV, a potential game-changer, has yet to materialize.
Analysts forecast modest near-term growth, with 2025 revenue expected to reach $1.3 billion, with a 61% increase, and losses projected to decline slightly.
However, even optimistic forecasts place Lucid’s market cap at just $6.4 billion, roughly five times its expected 2025 sales. In contrast, Tesla’s valuation remains over $1 trillion, with a price-to-sales ratio of around 12.
If Lucid can deliver on its growth plans, the stock has the potential to double or triple, if it achieves a valuation comparable to Tesla’s. For now, the reverse stock split provides a temporary reprieve, but investors should think about it carefully given the company’s volatile financials and stiff competition.
Will Lucid have a market for long?
Lucid Motors’ stock had a rough week, reflecting broader investor concerns about the future demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and overall market sentiment. The luxury EV maker’s shares fell sharply after analysts highlighted ongoing challenges in the industry, including increased competition, rising production costs, and moderating consumer interest.
Despite earlier excitement around Lucid’s technological innovations and plans to expand its luxury lineup, recent earnings reports and market data suggest that the company may be facing a more challenging environment than previously anticipated.
Persistent supply chain disruptions, combined with skepticism over EV adoption rates, are weighing on investor confidence.
For investors, Lucid’s recent decline, which has now reversed nearly all of its recent gains, signals heightened caution among shareholders in a fluctuating EV sector.
As automakers compete fiercely for market share, especially in the premium segment, Lucid’s future profitability remains under close scrutiny.
Antonio Gracias, Elon Musk’s close ally and Tesla (TSLA) board member, has pivoted to a controversial takeover of Lykos Therapeutics, a biotech firm developing MDMA-based therapies once rejected by the FDA for safety concerns, The Guardian reports.
As the psychedelics industry inches toward mainstream acceptance, new developments reveal how politics, science, and industry interests are shaping the future of mental health treatments.
But Gracias’ involvement in the regulatory body of the company he is now boosting is raising eyebrows, The Guardian reports.
Lykos, which announced a $50 million recapitalization earlier this year, has been at the front of pioneering some of the most promising research into MDMA-assisted therapy. But the firm’s recent FDA rejection of its clinical trials, which cited flaws linked to bias and trial design, has cast doubt on its prospects for approval.
Thanks largely to debates about scientific rigor, the agency ordered new Phase 3 testing, a process likely to take several years and cost millions.
The company’s opponents argue that flawed science led to the rejection, while supporters believe in the therapeutic potential of MDMA under proper regulation.
Neither Lykos nor Gracias responded to a request for comment.
‘Greasing the wheels’ for regulation?
Gracias’s recent leadership of Lykos, financed with a $50 million infusion backed by wealthy investors including hedge funds and veteran executives, arrives as Republican and Democratic officials alike are warming to the idea of faster approval for psychedelic medicines.
Some top Trump-era health officials, such as former officials and lawmakers, have publicly supported reevaluating the regulatory process, citing promising early results and patient demand.
This is raising alarm bells with ethics experts.
“You can’t be greasing the wheels and then say, ‘OK, now I’m going to quit and go pursue that approval,’” said Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the non-profit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Guardian.
This political backing fuels concerns about politicizing the science. Critics warn that relaxing FDA standards or fast-tracking approvals under the influence of industry insiders could undermine the integrity of scientific research, risking future setbacks if safety is compromised.
“The challenge is ensuring that enthusiasm doesn’t outpace the evidence,” As Mason Marks, a Harvard law professor specializing in drug policy, told The Guardian. “Science must remain independent from politics to avoid bringing the entire industry into disrepute.”
Meanwhile, Gracias’s ties to Musk and the military, along with his past work in government, have raised questions about conflicts of interest amid the push for regulatory reform.
So will the FDA now reconsider?
The FDA now has broad discretion to reconsider its previous decisions, potentially issuing emergency authorizations or expedited reviews, creating opportunities for firms like Lykos to accelerate their path to market.
“Maps and Gracias are going to try to seize the moment that we’re in,” Ifetayo Harvey, a former Maps employee and executive director of the People of Color Psychedelic Collective, said. “I think the aim is to get MDMA-assisted psychotherapy approved by the FDA by any means necessary.”
Gracias’ involvement raises quite a few questions for the burgeoning psychedelics industry.
It stands at a crossroads: Whether to forge ahead under politicized but promising conditions or to proceed cautiously to ensure long-term safety and efficacy. As political figures harness deepening public interest in mental health and wellness, industry insiders and regulators face a delicate balance between hope and harm, progress and prudence.
“With the lack of transparency, it leaves us really grasping at what it even means to be Doge,” said Faith Williams, a policy director at the Project on Government Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group, told The Guardian.. “We have seen so many, if not outright conflicts of interest then potential for conflicts of interest, and if not outright corruption, potential for corruption.”
The magic of Burning Man
Rick Doblin, founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and a prominent, longtime advocate for the research and therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs. Doblin said he immediately saw a partnership.
“It was the magic of Burning Man,” Doblin said. “I was sort of looking for a white knight that would come in and would be more focused on healing and on public benefit.”
That spring, Lykos Therapeutics has announced a major leadership shakeup, appointing a new CEO and chief medical officer and restructuring its board of directors. These moves arrived as Gracias and investor Christopher Hohn assumed control.
“Gracias is actively involved in the company’s day-to-day operations,” an unnamed Map director and industry insider, told The Guardian. They said that was emphasizing the influence Gracias now wields over the firm’s strategic direction as it aims to regain regulatory confidence and accelerate clinical trials.
This leadership shift underscores the high stakes and intense industry interest in psychedelics, with supporters and critics alike watching closely as the company navigates complex regulatory and scientific hurdles.
But even more unusually, backers of the the company have been accused of a fundraising effort that allegedly involved doing drugs with investors.
“Definitely part of their fundraising strategy is ‘Meet rich people at Burning Man, do psychedelics with them and get Maps money,’” Harvey, who was Doblin’s executive assistant in 2015, told The Guardian.
Maps addresses allegations of drugs with investors
Maps denied that it used drugs to as a means of drumming up investment.
“MAPS conducts all fundraising activities with the highest integrity and maintains strict ethical boundaries in all donor relationships and fundraising activities. MAPS does not supply controlled substances at any events or gatherings, nor do we use substances as a fundraising tool or strategy,” Maps said in a statement.
At least three artificial intelligence researchers have resigned from Meta’s new superintelligence lab, just two months after CEO Mark Zuckerberg first announced the initiative. Two of the staffers have returned to OpenAI, where they both previously worked, after less than one-month stints at Meta, WIRED has confirmed.
Avi Verma was previously a researcher at OpenAI. Ethan Knight worked at the ChatGPT maker earlier in his career but joined Meta from Elon Musk’s xAI. A third researcher, Rishabh Agarwal, announced publicly on Monday he was leaving Meta’s lab as well. He joined the tech giant in April to work on generative AI projects before switching to a role at Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), according to his LinkedIn profile. While the reasons for Agarwal’s departure are not known, he is based in Canada and Meta’s AI teams are predominantly based in Menlo Park, California.
“It was a tough decision not to continue with the new Superintelligence TBD lab, especially given the talent and compute density,” Agarwal wrote on X, referring to the team at MSL that is specifically pursuing frontier AI research. “But after 7.5 years across Google Brain, DeepMind, and Meta, I felt the pull to take on a different kind of risk.” It’s unclear where he may be going next. Agarwal did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED.
“During an intense recruiting process, some people will decide to stay in their current job rather than starting a new one,” said Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold. “That’s normal,”
Meta is also losing another leader who has worked at the tech giant for nearly a decade. Chaya Nayak, the director of generative AI product management at Meta, is joining OpenAI to work on special initiatives, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the hire.
Verma and Knight did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED. Nayak declined to comment in time for publication.
The departures are the strongest public signal yet that Meta Superintelligence Labs could be off to a rocky start. Zuckerberg lured people to join the lab with nine-figure pay packages associated more often with professional sports stars than tech workers, hoping the influx of talent would allow the social networking giant to rapidly catch up with its competitors in the race toward so-called artificial general intelligence.
But Meta executives have reportedly struggled to combat bureaucratic and recruitment issues related to its AI initiatives. Meta has repeatedly reorganized its AI teams in recent months, most recently splitting employees into four groups, per The Wall Street Journal.
In July, Zuckerberg announced that another former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao, who played a key role in the creation of ChatGPT, would become the chief scientist of MSL. The announcement came after Zhao tried to return to OpenAI—even going as far as to sign employment paperwork—according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the events.
“Shengjia co-founded MSL and has been our scientific lead since day one,” Arnold said in a statement to WIRED. “We formalized his role once our recruiting had ramped and the team had taken shape.”
