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Elon Musk roasts WSJ coverage of fatal Tesla crash, defends Autopilot
Tesla CEO Elon Musk roasted the Wall Street Journal for their coverage of the crash that killed two men involving a 2019 Model S. Mainstream media reports claimed that the vehicle was “driverless” in an attempt to cast bad press on Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. Musk shared new details regarding the vehicle involved, revealing that the car was not subscribed to the Full Self-Driving program, a voluntary purchase made by Tesla owners, nor could it have been operating on Autopilot due to a lack of road lines.
Musk, in a reply to a skeptical Twitter user who didn’t believe a media outlet’s coverage of the accident, said:
“Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD. Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have.”
Tesla alleged “driverless” crash in Texas: What is known so far
The Wall Street Journal reported the story with the headline “Fatal Tesla Crash in Texas Believed to Be Driverless.” This uses the automatic association that Tesla electric vehicles have with self-driving programs. However, Tesla does not, nor has it ever claimed to have a self-driving vehicle or software that would make a car drive without the driver needing to pay attention. Tesla has a suite called Full Self-Driving (FSD) but has maintained that it is still the driver’s responsibility to pay attention to the road and abide by all road rules. The FSD suite is available for $10,000 and can be purchased at any time.
Your research as a private individual is better than professionals @WSJ!
Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD.
Moreover, standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2021
However, the vehicle involved in the accident was not subscribed to the FSD program. Tesla keeps records of its cars and can track whether any car has FSD or not. Musk claims that data logs that have been recovered thus far show that the involved vehicle did not have FSD.
Additionally, Tesla’s basic Autopilot suite, which now comes standard on every vehicle, would not have been able to function with the road conditions presented in the area of the accident. Standard Autopilot requires road lines to be functional. This road was unmarked, so Tesla’s basic Autopilot feature would not have been active. It’s impossible.
Unfortunately, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving suites are usually the first points of blame when an accident occurs. When Tesla’s are involved in violent or fatal accidents, they are very publicly covered by media outlets. It only adds fuel to the skeptic’s fire against the FSD and self-driving programs that Tesla is currently working on completing. In the past, Elon Musk has stated that Tesla may accomplish Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021, but the CEO and the company have never claimed that a Tesla vehicle can drive itself. The company has also enforced several barriers that would prevent a driver from letting the vehicle operate independently. If a driver does not keep their hands on the steering wheel while the car is in motion, the vehicle will automatically pull over, and Autopilot will be deactivated for the remainder of the drive.
The company also has revoked FSD access to some drivers after abusing the capabilities of the software and not handling it responsibly.
This should dismiss the idea that AP was somehow the cause of this horrific incident. I pray for the family and friends of the deceased. Let’s trust the real investigators will discover what really happened here. pic.twitter.com/0tp8Vbh6fH
— Mikey Likes (@mliebow) April 18, 2021
Reports indicate that the NHTSA has launched an investigation into the Texas crash to determine the cause of the fatal collision.
Tesla recently released its Q1 2021 Safety Report, which showed that cars operating on Autopilot are nearly ten times safer than cars that are being operated by a humans.
Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
