A Tesla Model X burns after crashing on U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View, California, U.S. on March 23, 2018.
S. Engleman | Via Reuters
Federal authorities say a “critical safety gap” in Tesla‘s Autopilot system contributed to at least 467 collisions, 13 resulting in fatalities and “many others” resulting in serious injuries.
Tesla’s Autopilot design has “led to foreseeable misuse and avoidable crashes,” the NHTSA report said. The system did not “sufficiently ensure driver attention and appropriate use.”
The agency also said it was opening a new probe into the effectiveness of a software update Tesla previously issued as part of a recall in December. That update was meant to fix Autopilot defects that NHTSA identified as part of this same investigation.
The voluntary recall via an over-the-air software update covered 2 million Tesla vehicles in the U.S., and was supposed to specifically improve driver monitoring systems in Teslas equipped with Autopilot.
NHTSA suggested in its report Friday that the software update was probably inadequate, since more crashes linked to Autopilot continue to be reported.
In one recent example, a Tesla driver in Snohomish County, Washington, struck and killed a motorcyclist on April 19, according to records obtained by CNBC and NBC News. The driver told police he was using Autopilot at the time of the collision.
The NHTSA findings are the most recent in a series of regulator and watchdog reports that have questioned the safety of Tesla’s Autopilot technology, which the company has promoted as a key differentiator from other car companies.
On its website, Tesla says Autopilot is designed to reduce driver “workload” through advanced cruise control and automatic steering technology.
Tesla has not issued a response to Friday’s NHTSA report and did not respond to a request for comment sent to Tesla’s press inbox, investor relations team and to the company’s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy.
Earlier this month, Tesla settled a lawsuit from the family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer and father of two, who died in a crash when his Tesla Model X with Autopilot features switched on hit a highway barrier. Tesla has sought to seal from public view the terms of the settlement.
In the face of these events, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk signaled this week that they are betting the company’s future on autonomous driving.
“If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla’s going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company,” Musk said on Tesla’s earnings call Tuesday. He added, “We will, and we are.”
Musk has for years promised customers and shareholders that Tesla would be able to turn its existing cars into self-driving vehicles with a software update. However, the company offers only driver assistance systems and has not produced self-driving vehicles to date.
He has also made safety claims about Tesla’s driver assistance systems without allowing third-party review of the company’s data.
For example, in 2021, Elon Musk claimed in a post on social media, “Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than average vehicle.”
Philip Koopman, an automotive safety researcher and Carnegie Mellon University associate professor of computer engineering, said he views Tesla’s marketing and claims as “autonowashing.” He also said in response to NHTSA’s report that he hopes Tesla will take the agency’s concerns seriously moving forward.
“People are dying due to misplaced confidence in Tesla Autopilot capabilities. Even simple steps could improve safety,” Koopman said. “Tesla could automatically restrict Autopilot use to intended roads based on map data already in the vehicle. Tesla could improve monitoring so drivers can’t routinely become absorbed in their cellphones while Autopilot is in use.”
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
Jim Lo Scalzo | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla shares have dropped 7% from Friday’s closing price of $323.63to the $300.71 close on Tuesday ahead of the company’s second-quarter deliveries report.
Wall Street analysts are expecting Tesla to report deliveries of around 387,000 — a 13% decline compared to deliveries of nearly 444,000 a year ago, according to a consensus compiled by FactSet. Prediction market Kalshi told CNBC on Tuesday that its traders forecast deliveries of around 364,000.
Shares in the electric vehicle maker had been rising after Tesla started a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in late June and CEO Elon Musk boasted of its first “driverless delivery” of a car to a customer there.
The stock price took a turn after Musk on Saturday reignited a feud with President Donald Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the massive spending bill that the commander-in-chief endorsed. The bill is now heading for a final vote in the House.
That legislation would benefit higher-income households in the U.S. while slashing spending on programs such as Medicaid and food assistance.
Musk did not object to cuts to those specific programs. However, Musk on X said the bill would worsen the U.S. deficit and raise the debt ceiling. The bill includes tax cuts that would add around $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
The Tesla CEO has also criticized aspects of the bill that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in support for renewable energy development in the U.S. and phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.
Such changes could hurt Tesla as they are expected to lower EV sales by roughly 100,000 vehicles per year by 2035, according to think tank Energy Innovation.
The bill is also expected to reduce renewable energy development by more than 350 cumulative gigawatts in that same time period, according to Energy Innovation. That could pressure Tesla’s Energy division, which sells solar and battery energy storage systems to utilities and other clean energy project developers.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Musk was, “upset that he’s losing his EV mandate,” but that the tech CEO could “lose a lot more than that.” Trump was alluding to the subsidies, incentives and contracts that Musk’s many businesses have relied on.
SpaceX has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others.
Tesla has reported $11.8 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by Geoff Orazem, CEO of FedScout.
These incentives are largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.
Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line. Credit revenue amounted to approximately 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Aman Venice hotel, on the second day of the wedding festivities of Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez, in Venice, Italy, June 27, 2025.
Yara Nardi | Reuters
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unloaded more than 3.3 million shares of his company in a sale valued at roughly $736.7 million, according to a financial filing on Tuesday.
The stock sale is part of a previously arranged trading plan adopted by Bezos in March. Under that arrangement, Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares of Amazon over a period ending May 29, 2026.
Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has been selling stock in the company at a regular clip in recent years, though he’s still the largest individual shareholder. He adopted a similar trading plan in February 2024 to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through late January of this year.
Bezos previously said he’d sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin. He’s also donated shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit that’s building a chain of Montessori-inspired preschools across several states.
The most recent stock sale comes after Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot last week in a lavish wedding in Venice. The star-studded celebration, which took place over three days and sparked protests from some local residents, was estimated to cost around $50 million.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.
Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images
The Google Doodle is Alphabet’s most valuable piece of real estate, and on Tuesday, the company used that space to promote “AI Mode,” its latest AI search product.
Google’s Chrome browser landing pages and Google’s home page featured an animated image that, when clicked, leads users to AI Mode, the company’s latest search product. The doodle image also includes a share button.
The promotion of AI Mode on the Google Doodle comes as the tech company makes efforts to expose more users to its latest AI features amid pressure from artificial intelligence startups. That includes OpenAI which makes ChatGPT, Anthropic which makes Claude and Perplexity AI, which bills itself as an “AI-powered answer engine.”
Google’s “Doodle” Tuesday directed users to its search chatbot-like experience “AI Mode”
AI Mode is Google’s chatbot-like experience for complex user questions. The company began displaying AI Mode alongside its search results page in March.
“Search whatever’s on your mind and get AI-powered responses,” the product description reads when clicked from the home page.
AI Mode is powered by Google’s flagship AI model Gemini, and the tool has rolled out to more U.S. users since its launch. Users can ask AI Mode questions using text, voice or images. Google says AI Mode makes it easier to find answers to complex questions that might have previously required multiple searches.
In May, Google tested the AI Mode feature directly beneath the Google search bar, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget — a place where Google rarely makes changes.