Lifestyle
Tesla can help solve Human Trafficking: A survivor explains how
Eliza Bleu went to the Vans Warped Tour with some friends. After meeting a photographer, she set her sights on the big city of Los Angeles, a far cry from her humble beginnings in rural Illinois.
When she got to LA, her visit wasn’t exactly what she expected it to be. It turned out that the photographer she had met was actually a recruiter for a human trafficking ring, and Bleu found herself in the middle of a trap, not knowing how she would get out.
Eliza was sex trafficked for nine years total before gaining the courage to attempt an escape one night from her apartment. Now, she is a survivor advocate and a voice for those who don’t have one. Her primary focus is fighting to alleviate the highly-concentrated number of websites that harbor child sexual abuse and human trafficking materials. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 2019, there were nearly 17 million reported cases of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), 94% of which were found on Facebook and its platforms. According to The New York Times, there were over 45 million photos and videos of children being abused online in 2018, doubled from the previous year. Big Tech has a major problem with human trafficking material shared on social media websites, she says.
Fighting human trafficking imagery and videos isn’t going to be successful through human intervention alone; things move too quickly. Human intervention and current technology are not capable of tackling a problem of this scale. Bleu, who came across Tesla and Elon Musk a few years ago, believes that the key to ending online exploitation lies within a company with cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence capabilities, brilliant engineers, and software that can filter harmful imagery faster than it can be uploaded. She believes that company could be Tesla.
“AI can save people from being trafficked,” Bleu says. “Human trafficking has moved predominately to a digital platform, and the tech space needs to get involved in the fight.”
Eliza Bleu attended the Tesla Parade Against Human Trafficking in Atlanta, Georgia, in December. She had the Tesla logo shaved into her head for the event.
Why Tesla?
“If traffickers saw Elon working on this issue, they would be terrified of the possibilities,” Bleu said in an interview with Teslarati.
While many websites have filters that try to remove some of the content once it’s been uploaded, it isn’t a 100% fix because most content slips through the cracks. Since so many sites with massive amounts of traffic have accessible imagery, it will be a difficult fix. However, Bleu believes that some real progress can be made if the right team is working on the issue. It starts with software and AI development that would have the ability to filter out harmful content. Once child sexual abuse and sex trafficking material are reduced online, it may lead to the beginning of the end of human trafficking as resources can be refocused to the fight on the ground.
Bleu knows it’s an uphill climb, and she knows that it will be difficult. But, her motto is a quote of Elon Musk’s, and every day she reminds herself that just because the odds aren’t in your favor doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
“I think about Elon a lot because my mission, to me, is the equivalent of getting to Mars,” she adds. “It seems impossible, and I know the odds aren’t in my favor. But, I think it’s important, and I think it’s worth fighting for.”
Bleu was a speaker at a recent Tesla rally in Atlanta, Georgia, which raised money for the fight against human trafficking. She traveled to the event on her own dime and took time away from her day job as a human trafficking survivor advocate to speak at the event to raise awareness for this important issue.
Tesla has always been a draw to Eliza because of how brilliant the company is. Its research has culminated into an automotive empire that goes far beyond building a car frame and putting wheels and a motor on it. It’s about the brain of the vehicle, and Bleu thinks that there is enough talent at Tesla to take on the task. Additionally, AI is already being used to combat human trafficking, as described in the article from Forbes. Survivors are also learning to code through the Annie Cannons nonprofit program, and many choose to work on solving this problem (Wired).
Even after survivors of human trafficking are given the opportunity to be set free, the battle doesn’t end there. They may still be harassed or trafficked through images and video.
My former trafficker still follows me on social media and messages me.
I have a message for you. Kiss my whole ass. ??
— Eliza (@elizableu) December 31, 2020
What Can Tesla Do?
The possibilities of what Tesla can do, Bleu says, are endless. “I know that Tesla employs some of the most brilliant people in the world. That is who we need to fight this problem. It is our children we are talking about here,” she says. Some of the things that Eliza described to me during this interview were jaw-dropping and wouldn’t be suitable to include in this piece. But trust me, it would be enough to influence you to get involved as well.
“There are so many forms of human trafficking, too. It’s not just about sex,” she says. “I see people with Nike shoes and Apple products, and I think, ‘Whoever made that was exploited for cheap labor.’” There is no limit to who Bleu wants to help, but she needs assistance in her journey to overcome the predators, the pimps, and the evildoers who use trafficking as a means of living.
Tesla can certainly help with code writing and AI work. It is a company that learns fast. It’s evident through several things: accelerating scalability, the constantly improving Full Self-Driving suite, and the company’s overwhelming domination as a software entity. All of these things speak to Bleu in a way where she was able to put 2 and 2 together and make 4. Tesla could be the answer to all of her prayers and is exactly the company she was looking for.
“I know Elon has held Hack-a-Thons in the past, and I think that could be very beneficial,” she says. “Putting a bunch of sharp minds in a room to figure out some of the world’s biggest problems seems like a great idea.”
What Has Brought Eliza Bleu’s Mission to Light?
The fight against human trafficking became a household conversation with the high-profile arrests of Jeffrey Epstein and later Ghislaine Maxwell. Bleu’s mission started to gain some momentum when survivors of Epstein, who she now works with as a part of Victims Refuse Silence, started to come forward. “That was a huge step in the right direction,” she says. “But we have to keep going, and people won’t know the truth about human trafficking unless you tell them.”
What is the Solution?
Bleu wants the world’s brightest minds to come together and work on a solution to this problem. While she is a firm supporter of AI because it has been proven to help in the past, there is no boundary on what she will do to end human trafficking. Nevertheless, she is looking at her hero, Elon Musk, who she has gained inspiration from, to help find a solution.
So, Elon, if you are reading this, consider talking to Eliza Bleu. She believes your help, and your mind, along with all of the brilliant minds at Tesla, could finally help solve the issue of human trafficking before it gets worse.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
Elon Musk
India tells Elon Musk’s X to “Follow the Law” in latest censorship update
Elon Musk says X now exposes government censorship, but India’s secrecy laws complicate that promise.
Elon Musk’s promise to make government censorship requests on X “clearly visible” is running into a wall in India, where the law forbids the very disclosure Musk is promising.
On August 15, Musk responded to an update from X’s open-source algorithm team by writing “Any censorship required by governments is now clearly visible.” The claim referred to a change X pushed two days earlier to its public xai-org/x-algorithm repository, which now includes a controversial filter written directly into the code. The filter suppresses posts from 665 accounts flagged by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court from appearing in the For You feed of any viewer located in Brazil, unless the viewer already follows the account. The election tied to the filter is scheduled for October 4.
India’s government wasn’t as impressed, and responded on Monday that “X will have to follow the law of the land,” in response to Musk’s transparency push covered by the Times of India. The problem is structural rather than political. India issues content blocking orders under Section 69A of its IT Act, and Rule 16 of the accompanying 2009 Blocking Rules requires those orders to stay confidential. Publishing an India equivalent of the Brazil filter, naming specific accounts and citing specific government orders, would itself violate Indian law. Government use of Section 69A has grown from roughly 6,000 orders a year between 2018 and 2023 to about 24,300 in 2025, according to a Tech Times report.
The contrast puts Musk’s transparency pledge in an odd spot. It works largely as advertised in Brazil, where electoral law requires disclosure and X can point to specific account IDs and a specific court order in public code. It cannot work the same way in India, where the law requires the opposite. X users in India will keep seeing content disappear from search and their feeds without any public accounting of why, even as X tells the rest of the world that its censorship compliance is now inspectable.
This isn’t the first time X’s fights with a national government have shaped how the platform operates. Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X to suspend the accounts of sitting lawmakers and journalists in 2024, a standoff that cost X its Brazilian revenue for months and froze Starlink’s local accounts before the investigation into Musk and X was closed in March with no evidence of wrongdoing found. X also sued California over a state law requiring moderation disclosures, arguing the mandate itself violated the First Amendment.
Whether India’s government pursues anything beyond a public statement remains to be seen. For now, the mismatch between what X can legally publish and what different governments legally allow it to publish is the real story behind Musk’s seven word claim.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
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