Recently, reports emerged stating that General Motors’ self-driving unit, Cruise LLC, was dismissing nine top executives amid an ongoing probe. A memo from Cruise President Mo Elshenawy, which was shared by the self-driving unit online, shows that the nine executives were but the tip of the iceberg in the company’s efforts to strategize its operations.
Cruise has had a very eventful year. In August, Cruise received approval to deploy its self-driving robotaxis 24/7 in San Francisco. Following an incident when one of the company’s self-driving robotaxis crashed into a firetruck, however, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) advised Cruise to cut its fleet in the city by 50%.
Things took a turn for the worse in October when a pedestrian, a woman, was initially struck by a human-driven car. The impact was so notable that the woman was thrown into the path of a Cruise robotaxi, which ended up running over the pedestrian. The Cruise robotaxi detected a collision and proceeded to pull over, dragging the woman about 20 feet further. The pedestrian was taken to SF General Hospital with serious injuries.
By late October, the California DMV advised Cruise to halt all its operations in San Francisco. Since then, Cruise has implemented a number of changes. Leaders such as former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kyle Vogt and Chief Product Officer Daniel Kan also left the company.
In his memo, Cruise President Mo Elshenawy noted that the company has now updated its operating plans. These updates include a workforce reduction that affects about 24% of the company’s staff. Bloomberg News estimated that Cruise’s workforce reduction efforts would likely affect about 900 full-time workers. Most of the ones affected will be from operations, though some technology positions will also be affected. Engineers, however, will mostly be safe.
Following is Elshenawy’s memo to Cruise staff, as shared by the GM self-driving unit in its official blog. The document covers the company’s decision behind its workforce reduction, as well as what those affected by the update could expect in the coming months.
In October, Cruise paused operations to take time to examine our processes, systems and tools and improve how we operate. While we remain committed to commercialization, we will approach it within a thoughtful and achievable time frame—with safety as our north star.
As a result of our updated operating plans, today Cruise shared the difficult news that we are making staff reductions impacting 24% of full-time Cruisers. This reflects our new future and a more deliberate go-to-market path, meaning less immediate need for field, commercial operations and corporate staffing.
As we look forward, the road to successful commercialization is dependent on defining and meeting an exceptional performance and heightened safety bar. Cruise is committed to playing a key role in defining these standards with the input of our regulators, our communities and other AV industry leaders.
We are extremely grateful to the departing employees who have helped further our mission, and the remaining Cruisers who will carry that mission forward in our next chapter.
Below is a letter from Mo Elshenawy, President and CTO of Cruise, that went to all employees today:
Cruisers:
We knew this day was coming, but that does not make it any less difficult—especially for those whose jobs are affected.
Today, we are making staff reductions that will affect 24% of full-time Cruisers, through no fault of their own. We are simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale. As a result, we are reducing our employee counts in operations and other areas. These impacts are largely outside of engineering, although some Tech positions are impacted also. As you might have learned, yesterday, we took action to part ways with several SLT members.
Craig and I believe this is a necessary step, and our leadership team and the board are fully aligned with how our go-forward U.S. staffing needs will map to the priorities ahead of us, and set up Cruise for the long term. We have also ended additional assignments of contingent workers who support our driverless operations, as we refined our go forward plans.
In a few moments, you will receive an email letting you know whether or not you are affected by this staffing reduction. If you are impacted, you will get details about what happens next in a subsequent email.
Please know that our first priority is to treat departing Cruisers with fairness, and I will describe more about how we are doing that below.
I also want to explain why we are making these reductions, and what this means for Cruise moving forward.
Cruise today vs Cruise moving forward
As we’ve shared, our goal is to focus our work on a fully driverless L4 service that meets a new AV performance bar, prioritize the Bolt platform, relaunch ridehail in one city to start, and enhance our safety standards and processes before we scale. We are ceasing work on the Origin MY24 but not losing sight of our work on future programs. This is very different from our prior plans to expand into more than a dozen new cities in 2024.
As a result of our decision to slow down commercialization, we are restructuring to focus on delivering the improvements to our tech and vehicle performance that will build trust in our AVs.
Many of you will be impacted because we aren’t commercializing as quickly, and therefore don’t need support in certain cities or facilities. In other cases, we restructured teams based on the work we’re prioritizing. We didn’t take any of these decisions lightly, though I know that isn’t much of a consolation if you’re someone affected by the actions we are taking today.
How we’re helping departing employees
We know there’s no “good” way to lay off employees, but treating people fairly on their way out was a key principle that guided our approach, and our top priority was determining how we could provide a strong severance package, while treating departing Cruisers with respect. In short, we are offering departing Cruisers pay, at minimum, through April 8, 2024 (approximately 16 weeks), plus continued subsidized health benefits, RSU vesting, the January 5 bonus, and additional immigration support for those holding work visas.
Severance details include:
- Severance pay: Departing employees will remain on payroll through Feb. 12 and are eligible for an additional 8 weeks of pay, with long-term employees offered an additional 2 weeks’ pay per every year at Cruise over 3 years.
- Bonus: All impacted employees will receive their 2023 bonus (eligible target payout) on Jan. 5, 2024.
- Medical, Dental, Vision: we will provide Cruisers and their dependents who are currently enrolled in Cruise benefits the option to receive Cruise-subsidized medical, dental and mental health/EAP benefits through the end of May.
- Perks Wallet: We will give Cruisers two months to access the perks most important to them via our Perks Wallet.
- 401(k): We will give Cruisers two months to continue contributions into their 401(k) plan, including our employer match.
- RSU vesting: All Cruisers, including those impacted and those remaining, will receive their January 15th RSU vest. In addition, we will provide liquidity for all of these January 15th shares in Q1 based on an updated 409A fair market valuation that we will conduct in the first quarter. Tax obligations for these January 15th vested shares will not be incurred until we provide you liquidity for these shares.
- Career support: Departing employees will receive a year-long subscription to LinkedIn Premium, and we will create an opt-in alumni directory to connect potential employers with impacted Cruisers. Cruise Talent Acquisition will also run workshops on resume building, networking, and interview prep with departed Cruisers in the new year.
- Immigration support: We are offering continued time on payroll through March 24 in lieu of a lump-sum severance payment to allow visa holders additional time to help transition and manage their immigration status. Eligibility for the Perks Wallet and 401(k) contributions and match will also continue through this time. We also have dedicated support lined up to help Cruisers based on their needs.
Our message to other employers in the market is that each departing Cruiser is a talented, driven, and mission-focused team member who will contribute and achieve great things elsewhere. They are departing us through no fault of their own. Other companies will be privileged to have these professionals on their teams, as we were privileged to have them here during their time at Cruise.
What’s next
As mentioned, in a few moments, you will receive an email letting you know whether or not you are affected by this staffing reduction, and if you are impacted, you will get details about what happens next. I am so sorry we have to do this by email, as I would prefer that we have a conversation with each of you. Unfortunately, given the scale of this change, this approach allows us to communicate to those who are impacted at the same time. We know you will want to say goodbye to your colleagues, so you will have access to Cruise email and Zoom for the next couple of hours (until 10am PT).
This is one of the hardest days we’ve had so far because so many talented people are leaving. I’m thankful we had the chance to work together, and I know I speak on behalf of so many Cruisers who will be reaching out to those departing to help with our professional networks and references. On behalf of the SLT, the Cruise Board and GM, I’m truly grateful to everyone who has played a role in building Cruise and who has poured so much into the promise of making our roads safer and our world better.
Mo
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
News
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.
SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.
Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.
The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.
SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’
Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.
Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.
The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.
Tesla is set to launch Cybercab on Thursday at an event in Austin, Texas, which will officially bring the company’s first steering wheel-less and pedal-less vehicle to a limited number of consumers for the first time.
The event, which is invite-only, is still thin on details: we’ll be there, and it seems the event will be held at Gigafactory Texas, but the launch of this vehicle truly relies on it being operational outside of the factory and on public roads.
🚨 Close-Up look at Tesla Cybercab without steering wheel: pic.twitter.com/9TXCDeDCz7
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 3, 2026
Nevertheless, there are some big things to expect, and other things to temper expectations on. For what it’s worth, we believe this event could be perhaps the biggest indication that Tesla is ready to truly enter a new phase and chapter in its historic story.
Tesla Cybercab’s First Foray into the Public with Real-World Riders
Cybercab will likely hit the streets of Austin and the surrounding areas, likely in the established geofence that Tesla has expanded on for the past 14 months. Just yesterday, Tesla expanded it once again by 9 percent.
Tesla will put, for the first time, a vehicle without any manual controls on public roads, likely without any help from teleoperators. This is a truly groundbreaking development if it comes through in this fashion: it would be groundbreaking for Tesla to roll out a truly driverless ride-hailing vehicle.
Cybercab Has Already Been Unveiled
This is not an unveiling event. Cybercab has been released for nearly two years, as Tesla first showed it to the public on October 10, 2024.
FIRST LOOK: Tesla ‘Cybercab’ Robotaxi makes its global debut
While there is some small speculation that Tesla could release the Roadster at the event as a surprise, it seems more likely the focus will be on the Cybercab and the huge accomplishment that will come with releasing a vehicle with no manual controls.
There Will Be a Lot of Hype
What’s important to remember about the Cybercab event is that Tesla will continue to prioritize safety and the rollout will likely be slow, just as it has been with Robotaxi.
One of the biggest complaints about Robotaxi is vehicle population, and the fact that the wait for a ride, at least in some instances, has been longer than most want to admit.
It will take time for this project to truly scale. It will take time for Tesla to roll this out in a large fashion. The important thing to note is that they are doing it, and they’re doing it with a vehicle that is completely engineered and built internally. That’s something no other ride-hailing service can say.
Elon Musk recently restated a fact that still defines SpaceX’s origin story: if Falcon 1’s fourth launch had failed, the company would not exist. The comment answered a reminder that after three consecutive losses, SpaceX had money for only one more attempt.
On X, Peter Diamandis said that the present-day acknowledgement of SpaceX’s success does not discount the rough start the company had. “Almost nobody remembers that Elon’s first rocket failed three times, and there was money for exactly only one more attempt.”
Musk said, “If the 4th launch had failed, SpaceX would not exist.”
If the 4th launch had failed, SpaceX would not exist
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
In late 2008, the firm was nearly out of cash. Another failure would have ended payroll, closed the Hawthorne factory, and left the Falcon 9 and Dragon programs as unfinished drawings.
The first flight lifted off from Omelek Island on 24 March 2006. Thirty-three seconds later, a corroded aluminum fitting on a fuel line leaked. Kerosene ignited around the Merlin engine, control was lost, and the vehicle came apart. The small DARPA payload, FalconSAT-2, survived the short flight only to land on a storage shed near the pad. Investigators later traced the fitting to a materials mix-up that should never have reached the rocket.
Flight 2, on 21 March 2007, looked far better at first. The first stage burned cleanly and handed off to the Kestrel-powered upper stage. The vehicle crossed 100 kilometers and reached a peak of about 289 kilometers. Then propellant slosh in the second-stage tank started a circular coning motion that grew until the engine shut down. Telemetry faded as the stage tumbled, and SpaceX had reached space but not orbit. Over the next year, the team redesigned everything from the ground up, including tanks, baffles, and the new regeneratively cooled Merlin 1C.
That engine flew on Flight 3 on 2 August 2008. The first stage performed almost perfectly and reached 217 kilometers. After main-engine cutoff, leftover fuel in the cooling channels produced a faint residual thrust, roughly 10 pounds per square inch of chamber pressure. On a Texas test stand, the effect was invisible beneath ambient air pressure. In vacuum it was enough to push the spent first stage back into the second stage after separation. The stages collided, the upper stage spun, and the mission was lost. Musk later said a slightly longer delay before staging would have saved the flight.
Six weeks later, the team assembled Flight 4 from remaining parts and flew it on 28 September 2008 at 23:15 UTC. The payload was Ratsat, a 165-kilogram aluminum mass simulator built in-house. Staging was delayed so residual thrust could decay. The Kestrel ignited, the fairing split away, and nine and a half minutes after liftoff the vehicle was in orbit. After a coast, the second stage restarted, settling into a 621-by-643-kilometer path at 9.35 degrees inclination. Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach Earth orbit. Musk called the insertion “middle of the bull’s-eye.”
SpaceX restores a Falcon 1 rocket for 10th anniversary of first launch success
That success unlocked NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services award later that year. Without it, there would have been no Falcon 9, no reusable first stages, and no Dragon cargo or crew flights to the International Space Station. Launch prices would have remained far higher. Starlink’s constellation would not exist; broadband from low Earth orbit would still be a paper concept.
Ride-share markets, high launch cadence, and the current pace of lunar and Mars hardware would be years behind. Communications, Earth observation, and the cost of putting anything into space would look more like the 2000s than the 2020s.
One extra second of residual thrust in August 2008 would have written a different decade.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Tesla Cybercab Event: what to expect from Austin
