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NHTSA’s incoming senior safety adviser has a serious anti-Tesla Autopilot and FSD bias
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has recently confirmed that Duke University professor Missy Cummings is poised to be named as its new senior safety adviser. While her credentials as a computer science professor and background as a person knowledgeable about autonomous driving technologies would likely be an essential resource for the NHTSA, Dr. Cummings has exhibited something quite peculiar in social media — She appears to have a serious bias against Tesla, particularly surrounding the company’s Autopilot and Full Self Driving programs.
Over the years, Dr. Cummings, through her personal Twitter account, frequently posted overtly negative statements about Tesla, its vehicles, and its CEO Elon Musk. A number of Tesla owners and supporters who claimed to have not interacted with Dr. Cummings online also observed that they seem to have been preemptively blocked by the incoming NHTSA safety official.
Everybody has a personal bias about something they are passionate about. As such, it is understandable for the Duke University professor to adopt a skeptical stance on Tesla and its Autopilot and FSD programs. There is such a thing as a healthy dose of skepticism, after all. However, or at least based on the incoming NHTSA senior safety official’s Twitter feed, Dr. Cummings appears to have crossed the line from objective to subjective when it comes to Tesla and its technologies. The same goes for her stance regarding CEO Elon Musk. In March 2020, for example, Dr. Cummings seemingly joked about needing someone to stop her from punching Elon Musk in the face.
Punching jokes aside, the Duke University professor also stands as a present member of Veoneer, a Swedish LIDAR company. Publicly available SEC disclosures indicate that Dr. Cummings has received restricted stock units in Veoneer worth about $400,000 a year at present market prices. Considering that Tesla is a company directly competing with Veoneer in the way that it is developing autonomous driving systems with only a vision-based system, there seems to be a conflict of interest at play.
It should be noted that Dr. Cummings’ seat at Veoneer was not disclosed when she published a paper (which was later updated to remove inaccurate details about a fatal Tesla crash) criticizing systems such as Autopilot for their possible dangers. And so far, the incoming NHTSA senior safety adviser has not shared if she would be leaving her post at the Swedish LIDAR company, especially since she would soon be advising a US safety agency on driver-assist systems that adopt both LIDAR and non-LIDAR solutions.
Interestingly enough, Dr. Cummings’ criticism of Tesla and its Autopilot and FSD programs seems to stem from the fact that the company’s vehicles lack of equipment such as the LIDAR sensors provided by Veoneer. In an appearance at The Robot Brains Podcast earlier this year, the Duke University professor remarked that she is “basically an albatross around Elon’s and Tesla’s neck” and that “Where (she’s) going after is his (Elon Musk’s) desire to drop radar off of his cars and now go to vision-only.”
Dr. Cummings further noted that “There’s no vision research out there which doesn’t think that’s crazy and is gonna kill someone.” In a 2019 tweet, the incoming NHTSA safety official also noted that the NHTSA should require Tesla to disable Autopilot, since it “easily causes mode confusion.” This was a similar take from her post in 2018 when she noted that Elon Musk’s Tesla is the only “killer robot” present today.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has noted on Twitter that the Biden administration’s appointment of Dr. Cummings as a senior safety official for the NHTSA is quite “odd,” and in a later post, Musk also observed that “Objectively, her track record is extremely biased against Tesla.” In response to Musk’s post, the incoming senior safety official for the NHTSA noted that she was “happy to sit down and talk with you (Musk) anytime.” Hopefully, such a discussion could really happen with as little bias from both sides as possible, and with absolutely zero punches being thrown at the Tesla CEO.
The NHTSA’s appears to have its eye on Tesla recently. Earlier this month alone, and as the agency’s probe on several Autopilot crashes on stationary emergency vehicles continued, the NHTSA asked Tesla to explain why it rolled out a safety improvement to Autopilot through an over-the-air software update without issuing a recall.
This was quite an interesting question from the NHTSA, seeing as the Autopilot update was done as proactive measure that would allow Teslas to operate in a safer manner on the road, not as a response to a defect. This was despite Tesla accounting for only nine crash injuries with first responder vehicles in the past 12 months, a small fraction of the 8,000 injuries that were reported by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) involving a stationary emergency vehicle in the United States in a year.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI brings 1GW Colossus 2 AI training cluster online
Elon Musk shared his update in a recent post on social media platform X.
xAI has brought its Colossus 2 supercomputer online, making it the first gigawatt-scale AI training cluster in the world, and it’s about to get even bigger in a few months.
Elon Musk shared his update in a recent post on social media platform X.
Colossus 2 goes live
The Colossus 2 supercomputer, together with its predecessor, Colossus 1, are used by xAI to primarily train and refine the company’s Grok large language model. In a post on X, Musk stated that Colossus 2 is already operational, making it the first gigawatt training cluster in the world.
But what’s even more remarkable is that it would be upgraded to 1.5 GW of power in April. Even in its current iteration, however, the Colossus 2 supercomputer already exceeds the peak demand of San Francisco.
Commentary from users of the social media platform highlighted the speed of execution behind the project. Colossus 1 went from site preparation to full operation in 122 days, while Colossus 2 went live by crossing the 1-GW barrier and is targeting a total capacity of roughly 2 GW. This far exceeds the speed of xAI’s primary rivals.
Funding fuels rapid expansion
xAI’s Colossus 2 launch follows xAI’s recently closed, upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, which exceeded its initial $15 billion target. The company said the capital will be used to accelerate infrastructure scaling and AI product development.
The round attracted a broad group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco also continued their support, helping xAI build what it describes as the world’s largest GPU clusters.
xAI said the funding will accelerate its infrastructure buildout, enable rapid deployment of AI products to billions of users, and support research tied to its mission of understanding the universe. The company noted that its Colossus 1 and 2 systems now represent more than one million H100 GPU equivalents, alongside recent releases including the Grok 4 series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine. Training is also already underway for its next flagship model, Grok 5.
Elon Musk
Tesla AI5 chip nears completion, Elon Musk teases 9-month development cadence
The Tesla CEO shared his recent insights in a post on social media platform X.
Tesla’s next-generation AI5 chip is nearly complete, and work on its successor is already underway, as per a recent update from Elon Musk.
The Tesla CEO shared his recent insights in a post on social media platform X.
Musk details AI chip roadmap
In his post, Elon Musk stated that Tesla’s AI5 chip design is “almost done,” while AI6 has already entered early development. Musk added that Tesla plans to continue iterating rapidly, with AI7, AI8, AI9, and future generations targeting a nine-month design cycle.
He also noted that Tesla’s in-house chips could become the highest-volume AI processors in the world. Musk framed his update as a recruiting message, encouraging engineers to join Tesla’s AI and chip development teams.
Tesla community member Herbert Ong highlighted the strategic importance of the timeline, noting that faster chip cycles enable quicker learning, faster iteration, and a compounding advantage in AI and autonomy that becomes increasingly difficult for competitors to close.
AI5 manufacturing takes shape
Musk’s comments align with earlier reporting on AI5’s production plans. In December, it was reported that Samsung is preparing to manufacture Tesla’s AI5 chip, accelerating hiring for experienced engineers to support U.S. production and address complex foundry challenges.
Samsung is one of two suppliers selected for AI5, alongside TSMC. The companies are expected to produce different versions of the AI5 chip, with TSMC reportedly using a 3nm process and Samsung using a 2nm process.
Musk has previously stated that while different foundries translate chip designs into physical silicon in different ways, the goal is for both versions of the Tesla AI5 chip to operate identically. AI5 will succeed Tesla’s current AI4 hardware, formerly known as Hardware 4, and is expected to support the company’s Full Self-Driving system as well as other AI-driven efforts, including Optimus.
News
Tesla Model Y and Model 3 named safest vehicles tested by ANCAP in 2025
According to ANCAP in a press release, the Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed in 2025.
The Tesla Model Y recorded the highest overall safety score of any vehicle tested by ANCAP in 2025. The Tesla Model 3 also delivered strong results, reinforcing the automaker’s safety leadership in Australia and New Zealand.
According to ANCAP in a press release, the Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed in 2025. ANCAP’s 2025 tests evaluated vehicles across four key pillars: Adult Occupant Protection, Child Occupant Protection, Vulnerable Road User Protection, and Safety Assist technologies.
The Model Y posted consistently strong results in all four categories, distinguishing itself through a system-based safety approach that combines structural crash protection with advanced driver-assistance features such as autonomous emergency braking, lane support, and driver monitoring.
This marked the second time the Model Y has topped ANCAP’s annual safety rankings. The Model Y’s previous version was also ANCAP’s top performer in 2022.
The Tesla Model 3 also delivered a strong performance in ANCAP’s 2025 tests, contributing to Tesla’s broader safety presence across segments. Similar to the Model Y, the Model 3 also earned impressive scores across the ANCAP’s four pillars. This made the vehicle the top performer in the Medium Car category.
ANCAP Chief Executive Officer Carla Hoorweg stated that the results highlight a growing industry shift toward integrated safety design, with improvements in technologies such as autonomous emergency braking and lane support translating into meaningful real-world protection.
“ANCAP’s testing continues to reinforce a clear message: the safest vehicles are those designed with safety as a system, not a checklist. The top performers this year delivered consistent results across physical crash protection, crash avoidance and vulnerable road user safety, rather than relying on strength in a single area.
“We are also seeing increasing alignment between ANCAP’s test requirements and the safety technologies that genuinely matter on Australian and New Zealand roads. Improvements in autonomous emergency braking, lane support, and driver monitoring systems are translating into more robust protection,” Hoorweg said.
Elon Musk’s xAI brings 1GW Colossus 2 AI training cluster online
Tesla AI5 chip nears completion, Elon Musk teases 9-month development cadence
