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Tesla’s use of AI Day for recruitment piqued interest from engineers, Musk says
Tesla’s use of specific events for recruiting purposes was welcomed in by the company’s recently held AI Day, which took place in mid-September. Looking to expand its team of software engineers and AI experts, Tesla showed the most intimate details regarding its AI platform, impressive examples of its Full Self-Driving suite, and even unveiled the Tesla Bot. The idea worked, CEO Elon Musk revealed during the 2021 Annual Shareholder’s Meeting, which was held last night.
AI Day was perhaps Tesla’s most in-depth look into its semi-autonomous driving programs, its plan for a next-level Supercomputer and chip, and a surprising look at the company’s plans to begin building robot prototypes. Ultimately, for anyone who was in attendance or listening to the event, it was obvious it wasn’t geared toward informing the normal Tesla fan or enthusiast about its FSD progress. The language and technical nature of the event pointed toward one thing: Tesla needed new, young, and bright talent for their development of AI, and this was the perfect outlet for it.
Still, it is only a good idea if it works. But let’s be real, in 2021, what hotshot out of college would not want to work at Tesla? With all of the great technology that the company has released in the past few years, combined with the undoubted position of authority that Tesla holds in the EV space, most college students or engineering prodigies would most likely be willing to submit an application to Tesla, and Elon Musk stated that the event was overwhelmingly successful in bringing Tesla the talent that it sought after.
“And then AI Day, I think it was important to change the fundamental perception of Tesla because people do…they sort of think of Tesla as a car company, and yes, we made cars, but the AI part of Tesla was not well understood,” Musk said at the Shareholder meeting. “Tesla is as much a software company as it is a hardware company. And we also do the chips. So we designed the full self-driving inference computer. We’re designing a training computer that’s going to be able to, we think, be the most efficient neural net training computer in the world by far.”
It is a common misperception among most people to think that Tesla is exclusively an automotive manufacturer. However, the company deals with much more outside the realm of vehicles. Along with sustainable energy storage and production through its Tesla Energy side, it also develops software, chips, and other crucial parts of a car’s “brain,” if you can see it in that light. This is all a result of the hard work and dedication Tesla’s engineers have put forth. Musk indicates that more highly qualified candidates are on the way.
“We’re seeing a tremendous response, so daily applicants by role…And then after AI Day, that’s the AI applicants increased dramatically. So I thought that was a very successful day. Team did a great job. And yes, it’s going to be a very important part of the future. Self-driving is obviously one of the functions,” Musk added.
Please consider joining Tesla AI software or hardware teams! pic.twitter.com/HgigdtenKN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2021
Tesla has landed on Universum’s list of most attractive employers for engineering students on several occasions. Released in November 2020, the most recent list had Tesla and SpaceX ranked first and second, respectively, in the rankings.
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Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Marie Nilsson, chair of Sweden’s IF Metall union and a prominent critic of Tesla, has left X and is urging audiences to follow the union on Meta’s Threads instead.
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Anti-Tesla union leader exits X
In a comment to Dagens Arbete (DA), Nilsson noted that her exit from X is not formally tied to IF Metall’s long-running labor dispute with Tesla Sweden. Still, she stated that her departure is affected by changes to the platform under Elon Musk’s leadership.
“We have stayed because many journalists pick up news there. But as more and more people have left X, we have felt that the standard has now been reached on that platform,” she said.
Jesper Pettersson, press officer at IF Metall, highlighted that the union’s departure from X is only indirectly linked to Tesla Sweden and Elon Musk. “Indirectly it does, since there is a lot of evidence that his ownership has caused the change in the platform to be so significant.
“We have nevertheless assessed that the platform had value for reaching journalists, politicians and other opinion leaders. But it is a microscopic proportion of the public and our members who are there, and now that value has decreased,” Petterson added.
IF Metall sees Threads as an X alternative
After leaving X, IF Metall has begun using Threads, Meta’s alternative to the social media platform. The union described the move as experimental, noting that it is still evaluating how effective the platform will be for outreach and visibility.
Pettersson acknowledged that Meta also does not operate under Sweden’s collective bargaining model, but said the union sees little alternative if it wants to remain visible online.
“In a perfect world, all large international companies would be supporters of the Swedish model when they come here. But unfortunately, the reality is not like that. If we are to be visible at all in this social media world, we have to play by the rules of the game. The alternative would be to become completely invisible, and that would not benefit our members,” he said.
Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.
Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.
Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”
Not out of the question at some point. It would be a very different device than current phones. Optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2026
While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.
Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”
Reuters lies relentlessly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
We are not developing a phone
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.
Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.
Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.
Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.
It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.
This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.
The release notes state:
“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”
Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording
Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:
- 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
- 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage
This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.
While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.
It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.
Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone
