Microsoft’s interest in expanding its Azure cloud computing service to include artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputing technologies has led to a new partnership agreement with the Elon Musk-backed company, OpenAI. An investment of $1 billion dollars was recently made by Microsoft into the venture to develop an Azure-based hardware and software platform that will scale to artificial general intelligence (AGI). In turn, OpenAI will use Microsoft as their exclusive cloud provider.
OpenAI is a nonprofit AI research organization co-founded by Musk, serial entrepreneur Peter Thiel, and Y Combinator’s Sam Altman with the goal of developing beneficial, open source AI to combat any future rise of harmful AI. Musk stepped down from the Board of Directors in early 2018 to avoid any conflicts with Tesla’s Autopilot program; however, he still remains as a benefactor and advisor. Tesla’s Director of AI and Autopilot Vision, Andrej Karpathy, previously worked as a neural network researcher for OpenAI.
While the venture is backed by significant private investment, the long-term goals of OpenAI require even greater resources. The company’s motivation to create the new investment partnership with Microsoft was partially due to financial constraints caused by computing hardware needs. The financial requirements to retain top talent are also significant – OpenAI’s tax filings from 2016 revealed its top researcher was paid a $1.9 million dollar salary, with others receiving significant amounts as well.
“OpenAI is producing a sequence of increasingly powerful AI technologies, which requires a lot of capital for computational power. The most obvious way to cover costs is to build a product, but that would mean changing our focus. Instead, we intend to license some of our pre-AGI technologies, with Microsoft becoming our preferred partner for commercializing them,” OpenAI’s press release announcing the new partnership explained.
The connection between Microsoft and OpenAI is not new. In 2016, the companies jointly announced they were working together to run most of OpenAI’s large-scale experiments on Azure, making it their primary cloud platform for deep learning and AI. Azure had hardware configurations optimized for AI computing needs and a roadmap to expand those capabilities even further. One of the stated joint goals between Microsoft and OpenAI is the democratization of AI, and cloud computing is a large part of making that a reality as hardware and software resources are no longer required to be local to the user.
OpenAI has already created some impressive AI capabilities. In August last year, company bots created for the video game Dota 2 defeated a team of highly skilled human players in two games out of three. To accomplish the task, serious amounts of hardware and training were required. The nonprofit research lab employed a scaled-up version of Proximal Policy Optimization running on 256 GPUs and 128,000 cores to complete roughly 180 years worth of gameplay every day through reinforcement learning, which allowed the bots to develop advanced skills for the game. An open source gym for training AI with games was also released by the company.
In 2017, OpenAI announced that it had successfully trained its AI-powered robots to perform a task after watching it once in virtual reality. After showing a robot how to stack a series of colored blocks in a virtual reality simulation, it was then able to successfully mimic the actions. To accomplish this, OpenAI trained the robot in a simulated, virtual environment with nuances like lighting, shadows and backgrounds noise so that when in the real environment, it knew to filter out noise and focus on only important elements as a human brain would.
OpenAI also successfully taught AI bots to create their own language for communicating with each other in 2017. A paper was published on the topic which explained how the bots used reinforcement learning to accomplish simple goals through trial and error. After being given clues such as “Go to” or “Look at” by the researchers, the bots were then required to create their own machine language to communicate with each other.
The company’s latest commitment to Microsoft will now expand their access to resources to achieve even more impressive artificial intelligence feats.
Yesterday, we reported on Tesla Cybertruck getting some major adjustments from a manufacturing standpoint in an effort to make the all-electric pickup more cost-effective, more reliable, more serviceable, and more easily produced.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
One of those changes was the addition of a self-reinforcing polypropylene aero shield that sits underneath the truck. Previously, Tesla utilized aluminum for this, but the self-reinforcing polypropylene was more durable while also being cheaper and lighter.
Tesla has revealed another small change it made to the Cybertruck, and it has to do with the side repeater cameras.
Tesla does not wait for a new model year to improve its vehicles. On September 8, Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill posted side-by-side photos of an updated side repeater camera housing now rolling off the line at Gigafactory Texas.
The triangular camera pod mounted on the front fender looks almost identical at first glance. A closer look reveals a revised contour that uses the air already flowing around the truck to keep the lens clearer in rain and road spray.
The side repeater camera was updated – the version on the left is the newer part which uses passive geometry to create airflow disturbance that better keep water off the lens while driving. No cost penalty, just pure vision improvement. pic.twitter.com/wAbXtcL1Jf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 8, 2026
The side repeater cameras sit in an exposed position on the Cybertruck’s angular stainless-steel body.
In wet weather, they readily collect water droplets that can degrade the image Autopilot and Full Self-Driving use for lane changes and blind-spot monitoring. Early production trucks sometimes left owners wiping lenses by hand or accepting temporary restrictions on driver-assistance features.
Tesla has added washers to cameras on certain other models and on Cybercab prototypes, but those active systems add cost, complexity, and extra potential leak points.
The new housing solves the problem with passive geometry. Subtle changes in the surround create localized airflow disturbances as the vehicle moves. Those eddies physically push water droplets away from the optical surface. Morrill called the result “pure vision improvement” achieved at “no cost penalty.” Once the production mold is updated, every subsequent part costs the same as the original.
The advantages compound quickly. Clearer cameras in rain improve the reliability of driver-assistance features precisely when they are needed most. The design consumes no extra energy and introduces no new failure modes.
New Cybertrucks built after the tooling changeover receive the updated part automatically. Some owners of trucks delivered as late as June 2026 have already confirmed they received the revised housing. Retrofit questions have appeared in replies, and the cameras appear electrically compatible, though Tesla has not announced an official service program.
A few millimeters of reshaped housing will not make headlines the way a new battery pack does, but these changes are incremental and increase the Cybertruck’s effectiveness as a vehicle over time.
This improvement illustrates how Tesla continues to refine the Cybertruck after volume production began. Better wet-weather vision, zero added cost, and no extra hardware add up to a meaningful gain in everyday usability and safety.
Tesla is rolling out a new version of its Full Self-Driving suite to some owners that comes with the massive addition of a safety feature.
Tesla is rolling out Automatic Collision Evasion with the 2026.27.6 Software Update, which started rolling out to some vehicles last night. We received the update, along with Full Self-Driving v14.3.9, as well as v14.2 Lite, which has identical release notes as the previous version and seems to have some refinements and improvements in behavior and performance.
🚨 Tesla FSD v14.3.9 is rolling out as well as 2026.27.6 which includes Automatic Collision Evasion
Brand new safety features from a software update. My Tesla gets better everytime I get one of these pic.twitter.com/ctrMiQXWhM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 8, 2026
However, most of the attention has fallen on the Automatic Collision Evasion feature, which we covered in an article last week.
The function will activate Full Self-Driving to “try to keep your vehicle safe and then continue driving. It can engage in the following situations while you are driving manually:
- Scenario 1: A frontal collision is imminent and braking alone may not avoid it.
- Scenario 2: Your vehicle detects that you are not sufficiently attentive to the road (for example, reaching toward the back seat), or that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) may have been unintentionally disengaged.”
Essentially, FSD will take over when the vehicle determines you are not paying sufficient attention or are heading toward a potential collision. The addition of this feature is incredibly useful as distracted driving is a major issue in today’s world.
Along with the new safety feature is Tesla FSD v14.3.9, which has no additional release notes compared to the previous version, but in my first drives, my first impression is that operation is great, and parking is still sort of a pain point.
Just took a 15-mile round trip to the gym and back
Pretty on par with what FSD is nowadays – really good. Not enough time to see what’s good and what’s bad, but these first rides on any version feel shockingly good. They’re all pretty identical https://t.co/WN1qTg4bhE
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 9, 2026
Additionally, Tesla v14.2. Lite has arrived. A great review of that is available here:
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) September 9, 2026
The addition of an Automatic Collision Evasion feature is similar to that of other collision avoidance systems that are used by companies like Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. These programs typically utilize radar and camera sensors to apply emergency brakes autonomously, though evasive steering in a manual driving mode is pioneered primarily by Tesla’s newest addition.
Elon Musk
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.
Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.
Giga Texas today is busy with production coming back up following the long weekend. Of interest today in the outbound lot is the appearance of hundreds of Mode; YL’s and many more Cybercabs and for the 1st time equipped with the Starlink module one the hatch in big numbers.
At… pic.twitter.com/G9yl6s51m4
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 8, 2026
Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.
Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.
The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.
This tiny Tesla Cybertruck adjustment has big advantages
Tesla is rolling out a new FSD version with a massive safety addition
