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A jury in Miami has determined that Tesla should be held partly liable for a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash, and must compensate the family of the deceased and an injured survivor a portion of $329 million in damages.

Tesla’s payout is based on $129 million in compensatory damages, and $200 million in punitive damages against the company.

The jury determined Tesla should be held 33% responsible for the fatal crash. That means the automaker would be responsible for about $42.5 million in compensatory damages. In cases like these, punitive damages are typically capped at three times compensatory damages.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys told CNBC on Friday that because punitive damages were only assessed against Tesla, they expect the automaker to pay the full $200 million, bringing total payments to around $242.5 million.

Tesla said it plans to appeal the decision.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had asked the jury to award damages based on $345 million in total damages. The trial in the Southern District of Florida started on July 14.

The suit centered around who shouldered the blame for the deadly crash in Key Largo, Florida. A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system.

While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way. His Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle.

Naibel Benavides, who was 22, died on the scene from injuries sustained in the crash. Her body was discovered about 75 feet away from the point of impact. Her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, survived but suffered multiple broken bones, a traumatic brain injury and psychological effects.

“Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans,” Brett Schreiber, counsel for the plaintiffs, said in an e-mailed statement on Friday. “Tesla’s lies turned our roads into test tracks for their fundamentally flawed technology, putting everyday Americans like Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo in harm’s way.”

Following the verdict, the plaintiffs’ families hugged each other and their lawyers, and Angulo was “visibly emotional” as he embraced his mother, according to NBC.

Here is Tesla’s response to CNBC:

“Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial.

Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator – which overrode Autopilot – as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash.

This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility.”

The verdict comes as Musk, Tesla’s CEO, is trying to persuade investors that his company can pivot into a leader in autonomous vehicles, and that its self-driving systems are safe enough to operate fleets of robotaxis on public roads in the U.S.

Tesla shares dipped 1.8% on Friday and are now down 25% for the year, the biggest drop among tech’s megacap companies.

The verdict could set a precedent for Autopilot-related suits against Tesla. About a dozen active cases are underway focused on similar claims involving incidents where Autopilot or Tesla’s FSD— Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — had been in use just before a fatal or injurious crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initiated a probe in 2021 into possible safety defects in Tesla’s Autopilot systems. During the course of that investigation, Tesla made changes, including a number of over-the-air software updates.

The agency then opened a second probe, which is ongoing, evaluating whether Tesla’s “recall remedy” to resolve issues with the behavior of its Autopilot, especially around stationary first responder vehicles, had been effective.

The NHTSA has also warned Tesla that its social media posts may mislead drivers into thinking its cars are capable of functioning as robotaxis, even though owners manuals say the cars require hands-on steering and a driver attentive to steering and braking at all times.

A site that tracks Tesla-involved collisions, TeslaDeaths.com, has reported at least 58 deaths resulting from incidents where Tesla drivers had Autopilot engaged just before impact.

Read the jury’s verdict below.

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Microsoft had police remove protesters who stormed office over work with Israeli military

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Microsoft had police remove protesters who stormed office over work with Israeli military

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corp., at the Web Summit conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. The annual conference gathers key industry figures in technology.

James MacDonald | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft asked police to remove people who improperly entered a building at its headquarters in protest of the Israeli military’s alleged use of the company’s software as part of the invasion of Gaza.

On Tuesday, current and former Microsoft employees affiliated with the group No Azure for Apartheid started protesting inside a building on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, and gained entry into the office of Brad Smith, the company’s president. The protesters delivered a court summons notice at his office, according to a statement from the group.

“Obviously, when seven folks do as they did today — storm a building, occupy an office, block other people out of the office, plant listening devices, even in crude form, in the form of telephones, cell phones hidden under couches and behind books — that’s not OK,” Smith told reporters during a briefing.

“When they’re asked to leave and they refuse, that’s not OK. That’s why for those seven folks, the Redmond police literally had to take them out of the building.”

Smith said that out of the seven people who entered his office, two were employees.

While the company doesn’t retaliate against employees who express their views, Smith said, it’s different if they make threats. Microsoft will look at whether to discipline the employees who participated in the protest, Smith said.

Once inside Microsoft’s building 34, the No Azure For Apartheid protesters demanded that the company cut its ties with Israel and ask for an end to the country’s alleged genocide.

Tech’s megacap companies are doing more work with defense agencies, particularly as demand increases for advanced artificial intelligence technologies. Many of those activities were already controversial, but the issue has gotten more intense as Israel has escalated its military offensive in Gaza.

Last year Google fired 28 employees after some trespassed at the company’s facilities. Some employees gained access to the office of Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google’s cloud unit, which had a contract with Israel’s government.

No Azure for Apartheid has held a series of actions this year, including at Microsoft’s Build developer conference and at a celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary. A Microsoft director reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the protests continued, Bloomberg reported earlier on Tuesday.

Last week, No Azure For Apartheid mounted protests around the company’s campus, leading to 20 arrests in one day. Of the 20, 16 have never worked at Microsoft, Smith said.

The Guardian reported earlier this month that Israel’s military used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinians’ phone calls, leading the company to authorize a third-party investigation into whether Israel has drawn on the company’s technology for surveillance.

“I think the responsible step from us is clear in this kind of situation: to go investigate and get to the truth of how our services are being used,” Smith said on Tuesday.

Most of Microsoft’s work with the Israeli Defense Force involves cybersecurity for Israel, he said. He added that the company cares “deeply” about the people in Israel who died from the terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and the hostages who were taken, as well as the tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza who have died since from the war.

Microsoft intends to provide technology in an ethical way, Smith said.

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OpenAI says it plans ChatGPT changes after lawsuit blamed chatbot for teen’s suicide

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OpenAI says it plans ChatGPT changes after lawsuit blamed chatbot for teen's suicide

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Federal Reserve’s Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025.

Ken Cedeno | Reuters

OpenAI is detailing its plans to address ChatGPT’s shortcomings when handling “sensitive situations”
following a lawsuit from a family who blamed the chatbot for their teenage son’s death by suicide.

“We will keep improving, guided by experts and grounded in responsibility to the people who use our tools — and we hope others will join us in helping make sure this technology protects people at their most vulnerable,” OpenAI wrote on Tuesday, in a blog post titled, “Helping people when they need it most.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the parents of Adam Raine filed a product liability and wrongful death suit against OpenAI after their son died by suicide at age 16, NBC News reported. In the lawsuit, the family said that “ChatGPT actively helped Adam explore suicide methods.”

The company did not mention the Raine family or lawsuit in its blog post.

OpenAI said that although ChatGPT is trained to direct people to seek help when expressing suicidal intent, the chatbot tends to offer answers that go against the company’s safeguards after many messages over an extended period of time.

The company said it’s also working on an update to its GPT-5 model released earlier this month that will cause the chatbot to deescalate conversations, and that it’s exploring how to “connect people to certified therapists before they are in an acute crisis,” including possibly building a network of licensed professionals that users could reach directly through ChatGPT.

Additionally, OpenAI said it’s looking into how to connect users with “those closest to them,” like friends and family members.

When it comes to teens, OpenAI said it will soon introduce controls that will give parents options to gain more insight into how their children use ChatGPT.

Jay Edelson, lead counsel for the Raine family, told CNBC on Tuesday that nobody from OpenAI has reached out to the family directly to offer condolences or discuss any effort to improve the safety of the company’s products.

“If you’re going to use the most powerful consumer tech on the planet — you have to trust that the founders have a moral compass,” Edelson said. “That’s the question for OpenAI right now, how can anyone trust them?”

Raine’s story isn’t isolated.

Writer Laura Reiley earlier this month published an essay in The New York Times detailing how her 29-year-old daughter died by suicide after discussing the idea extensively with ChatGPT. And in a case in Florida, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III died by suicide last year after discussing it with an AI chatbot on the app Character.AI.

As AI services grow in popularity, a host of concerns are arising around their use for therapy, companionship and other emotional needs.

But regulating the industry may also prove challenging.

On Monday, a coalition of AI companies, venture capitalists and executives, including OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman announced Leading the Future, a political operation that “will oppose policies that stifle innovation” when it comes to AI.

If you are having suicidal thoughts or are in distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor.

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Okta raises forecast as CEO says economic conditions were ‘better than we thought’

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Okta raises forecast as CEO says economic conditions were ‘better than we thought’

Okta CEO Todd McKinnon appears on CNBC in September 2018.

Anjali Sundaram | CNBC

Okta shares rose 4% in extended trading on Tuesday after the identity software maker reported fiscal results that exceeded Wall Street projections.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: 91 cents adjusted vs. 84 cents expected
  • Revenue: $728 million vs. $711.8 million expected

Okta’s revenue grew about 13% year over year in the fiscal second quarter, which ended on July 31, according to a statement. Net income of $67 million, or 37 cents per share, was up from $29 million, or 15 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

In May, Okta adjusted its guidance to reflect macroeconomic uncertainty. But business has been going well, said Todd McKinnon, Okta’s co-founder and CEO, in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

“It was much better than we thought,” McKinnon said. “Yeah, the results speak for themselves.”

U.S. government customers are being more careful about signing up for deals after President Donald Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency in January.

“But even under that additional review, we did really well,” McKinnon said.

Net retention rate, a metric to show growth with existing customers, came to 106% in the quarter, unchanged from three months ago.

Read more CNBC tech news

Companies will need to buy software to manage the identities of artificial intelligence agents working in their environments, which should lead to expansions with customers, McKinnon said. Selling suites of several kinds of Okta software should also boost revenue growth, he said.

Management called for 74 cents to 75 cents in adjusted earnings per share and $728 million to $730 million in revenue for the fiscal third quarter. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected earnings of 75 cents per share, with $722.9 million in revenue. Okta expects $2.260 billion to $2.265 billion in current remaining performance obligation, a measurement of subscription backlog to be recognized in the next 12 months, just above StreetAccount’s $2.26 billion consensus.

The company bumped up its fiscal 2026 forecast. It sees $3.33 to $3.38 in full-year adjusted earnings per share, with $2.875 billion to $2.885 billion in revenue. The LSEG consensus showed $3.28 in adjusted earnings per share on $2.86 billion in revenue. Okta’s full fiscal year guidance from May included $3.23 to $3.28 per share and $2.850 billion to $2.860 in revenue.

Late last month, Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company that announced an expanded partnership with Okta in July, announced plans to acquire Okta rival CyberArk for about $25 billion.

“Palo Alto is going to be like, ‘You have to buy security from us, and your endpoint from us and your SIEM [security information and event management] from us and your network from us,’ ” McKinnon said. “We just think that’s wrong, because customers need choice. It’s very unlikely they’re going to get every piece of technology or every piece of security from one vendor.”

A Palo Alto spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier on Tuesday, Okta said it had agreed to acquire Israeli startup Axiom Security, which sells software for managing data access. The companies did not disclose terms of the deal.

As of Tuesday’s close, Okta shares were up 16%, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq was up 11%.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

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We're moving from prototype to production when it comes to agents, says Okta CEO Todd McKinnon

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