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Report: Women discuss discrimination, harassment and “predator zone” at Tesla
At a crowded Fremont Factory meeting, female employees shared stories of sexual harassment, mistreatment by male managers, unfair promotion decisions and more, sources told The Guardian.
One of the women there was AJ Vandermeyden, the female engineer who sued the company for pervasive harassment and pay discrimination. Shortly after this town hall took place, Vandermeyden was fired.
“They just want to absolutely crush anyone who speaks up,” Vandermeyden told the news outlet. “I spoke up, and I was made a sacrificial lamb for it. It’s a scary precedent.”
Tesla has rejected Vandermeyden’s claims, saying she was terminated for “falsely attacking our company in the press.”
CEO Elon Musk did not attend the meeting of about 70-100 people. More than 20 women talked about their experiences, according to Vandermeyden and another attendee, with one woman describing parts of the company’s Fremont factory as a “predator zone” for harassment.
Vandermeyden also said that a number of women raised their hands when asked if they had been catcalled in the factory.
Some women allegedly talked about feeling unsafe and facing sexist remarks from superiors, while others talked about being dismissed and talked over in meetings with no other female employees.
One male leader spoke up and said it was unacceptable, and noted that he had daughters, according to Vandermeyden
A former female manager, who was present but no longer works for the company, told The Guardian she was offended by that comment: “It’s insulting. You shouldn’t have to have daughters to know this.”
Tesla countered by saying that “executives attended because they wanted to hear directly from employees about their experiences and learn about how to improve the workplace,” in an email obtained by The Guardian.
Tesla further disputed the news outlet’s characterization of the event by saying, “Employees stood up to ask the executives questions, share their experiences at Tesla — both positive and negative — while others spoke of things that they believed Tesla was doing right and some came with suggestions. In some instances, employees were only looking for better collaboration with their HR business partners in general and had nothing to do with any allegations of harassment.”
The company statement said that when an employee referenced an area of the factory as a “predator zone,” it “surprised many in the room who had never heard of this term.”
Tesla said that immediately after the meeting, a factory-wide message to supervisors about its “strict policy against any kind of harassment” was sent, adding, “Any complaints of catcalling in the factory are thoroughly investigated and action is taken where necessary.”
According to The Guardian, Tesla also said that “there was a lot of energy around ensuring we are proactively sourcing diverse talent and ensuring that we have an interview and assessment process that is free from bias.”
Vandermeyden said she spoke at the meeting because “it was finally giving women a venue to voice what was going on. It felt like Tesla had been saying I’m making all this up. And here were all the women saying, ‘No, it’s happening.’ It’s too big to deny.”
AJ Vandermeyden sits in her Tesla outside her family’s home in San Carlos, California. (Source: Ramin Talaie for the Guardian)
Vandermeyden first got national attention when she went public with her lawsuit in February of this year, although the lawsuit was filed in September 2016.
She had been with Tesla since April of 2013, and alleged that during her time there she was subjected to behavior including “inappropriate language, whistling, and cat calls” at the hands of the mostly male staff. She further claims that she was paid less than her male colleagues despite performing work “equal in skill, effort, and responsibility.”
Vandermeyden also says that her attempts to raise concerns about the quality testing of cars and office behavior toward women were ignored by male superiors.
Tesla confirmed Vandermeyden’s firing at the time saying:
“Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms. Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press,” a spokesperson said. “After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and were absolutely convinced that Ms. Vandermeyden’s claims were illegitimate, we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla.”
This follows cases of alleged harassment at other tech companies, with Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick recently resigning amid a reportedly turbulent office culture.
As for not working at Tesla anymore, Vandermeyden had the following to say:
“I was never your enemy,” she said. “I still believe in the importance of transitioning the world to sustainable energy, but now I don’t get to be a part of it.”
Tesla flexed one incredible Robotaxi metric during the Q2 Earnings Call that skeptics have to hate to hear. The company’s platform has already driven more than 380,000 miles of unsupervised ride-hailing across several states with no notable incidents.
During the company’s Q2 Earnings Call on Wednesday, Vice President of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said:
“First of all, I’d like to state that the Robotaxi program has been operating extremely well. Especially in terms of safety, the program has had an impeccable safety record. We have driven more than 380,000 miles of unsupervised Robotaxi, now across six cities in two different states. We have had zero notable incidents. Any reports have been of other actors impacting us when we were stationary. I like to emphasize how safe the operation has been so far. Zero notable incidents over 380,000 miles.”
Elluswamy’s claim over Robotaxi miles is a significant milestone for Tesla in the grand scheme, especially considering this is a sizeable number of miles without any incident.
0 notable incidents across over 380,000 miles traveled by Robotaxi
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla’s self-driving approach is much different than that of other companies. Tesla has maintained that vision is the only thing needed to have a solid and effective self-driving suite. Many self-driving companies utilize things like LiDAR, sensors, and other elements to improve performance, but Elluswamy sent a jab at those who believe it’s needed.
“Historically, the so-called experts have always claimed that you need LiDARs, radars, HD maps, and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely. Here we show that such is not true. You can have safe, comfortable, and affordable autonomy with just cameras. This record should be a huge validation of Tesla’s entire AI approach.”
The feat of accumulating this many miles without any driver behind the wheel is impressive. The thing is, Tesla is also doing this across several different locations, with varying traffic rules, pedestrian levels, weather patterns, and other important factors.
While Tesla is not ready to roll out an unsupervised platform completely, it is a slow but steady indication that the company is well on its way to figuring things out.
The company’s attitude toward expansion is slow, safe, and controlled, and despite this huge milestone, it will still be some time until we see Tesla truly unleash unsupervised rides more aggressively.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla flexes incredible Robotaxi metric that skeptics will hate
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
