News
Tesla Giga New York faces racism allegations: report
Tesla Giga New York employees have alleged that they routinely faced racism while working at the plant. The problems have reportedly persisted since the facility opened years ago.
Gigafactory New York has been the site of controversy recently after the company terminated a number of employees as part of its regular performance review cycle. Among those who were terminated was an employee who identified as part of an active unionization campaign. A complaint with the US National Labor Relations Board has been filed against the EV maker for allegedly striking back at unionization efforts.
As per a recent report from the Investigative Post, a number of Black employees at Giga New York have also come forward about their alleged experiences on the plant. Seven current and former Tesla employees noted that the racist treatment they received ranged from offensive remarks to them being passed over for promotions regularly.
Promotions
Among those who were interviewed by the publication, four claimed that they were passed over for promotions at least 20 times when they tried to get a better post at the plant. The employees noted that as production associates, they worked on numerous manufacturing lines, and at times, they ended up supervising the work of other employees. The employees noted that when they attempted to get a promotion, they were generally unsuccessful.
As an example, two Black employees who were assigned to work on a new battery line reportedly performed very well, to the point where they ended up writing an instruction manual on how the line should work. When they approached Human Resources for a potential reward for their work, the men were reportedly denied. After this, one of the men claimed that he was sent to another area of Giga New York to pack boxes.
Eventually, a job was opened for the line that the men knew how to run, so both applied. One was asked to pass an engineering test and sit through an unusually extended interview before getting denied. The other did not even reach the interview stage. It was only after the line was shut down and restarted that one of the men was given a chance to have a more senior position.
“I don’t think there’s a clear structure. Did they even get my application? Did they look at it? Are they not hiring anymore? They don’t tell you anything,” one of the men said.
Optics
Five employees also alleged that Giga New York managers had asked groups of Black workers not to speak in groups due to optics. “People will, two or three people, gather and have a conversation. The minute the Black men gather, (management says) ‘Oh, you guys can’t group up like that. You know, it looks like a gang,’” an employee claimed.
The employees alleged that this type of treatment seemed specific to Black workers. This was because other workers of color do not experience the same treatment. This reportedly became particularly uncomfortable following the Tops shooting last May. After the tragedy, some Giga New York workers wanted to attend a vigil during work hours. Management allowed the workers to attend the vigil without pay, but when the workers returned, Giga New York management reportedly assumed that the Black workers were talking about forming a union. Tesla reportedly brought in an official to talk to the plant’s leadership about avoiding a union.
Amidst the allegations, the Giga New York employees did highlight that there are some positive changes in the facility. This included the arrival of a new production manager, Adetope Ogunniyi, who used to work at the company’s Nevada facility. The production manager has reportedly made positive changes, and she has done what she can to ensure that qualified Black employees are granted interviews and promotions. Despite her efforts, however, issues are reportedly still present.
“She’s trying to make changes. But, you know, they’re slow in coming,” one of the workers noted.
The full report on the employees’ allegations against Giga New York can be accessed here.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship launch is about to attempt its biggest leap yet
SpaceX targets September 22 for Starship Flight 14, its first attempt to reach real orbit.
SpaceX has set September 22 as the target date for Starship’s 14th test flight, and this one carries a different goal than any of the 13 that came before it. Every previous Starship mission has intentionally flown a suborbital arc, reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launched. Flight 14 is designed to send the craft into a genuine orbit around Earth for the first time.
The launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central time at Starbase in South Texas and runs for 75 minutes, pending regulatory approval, according to SpaceX’s mission description published Tuesday. If the flight goes as planned, Starship will circle the planet roughly six times at an altitude near 275 kilometers over about ten hours before a deorbit burn sends it toward a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile, a departure from the Indian Ocean recoveries used on the last several flights.
The mission also marks the first attempt to put a working batch of Starlink V3 satellites into actual service. Flight 13 carried 20 of the new satellites in July, but because that mission never left a suborbital trajectory, the payload reentered along with the ship instead of separating into orbit.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Each V3 satellite is rated for roughly one terabit per second of downlink capacity, so a successful deployment on Flight 14 would be SpaceX’s largest single jump in network bandwidth since Starlink began flying on Falcon 9.
Flight 13 still did the heavier lifting on the technical side. That July mission flew a deliberately more stressful reentry profile to test Starship’s heat shield, and the ship survived its softest splashdown yet, intact enough for drone inspections shortly after landing. Elon Musk said the flight delivered “all the heat shield data we needed and then some,” a result Teslarati covered in detail when he later said SpaceX had solved the vehicle’s biggest reusability challenge. Flight 14 is where SpaceX starts spending that confidence on an actual orbital insertion rather than another controlled fall back to Earth.
One thing Flight 14 will not attempt is a tower catch of the ship. Musk floated the idea right after Flight 13, but walked the timeline back in August, saying a catch attempt was more likely “in a few months.” The Super Heavy booster will still aim for its own recovery, targeting an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America, the same approach used on recent flights.
September 22 is SpaceX’s own target, not a locked date. Starship’s schedule has slipped before over hardware readiness and FAA sign off, and the company has said as much in its own mission notes. But the plan itself represents the clearest marker yet that Starship is moving from a suborbital test program into something meant to carry paying payloads and, eventually, people.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.
Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.
Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”
The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.
Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.
Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking
The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.
Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.
The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.
Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.
Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.
He said:
“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”
Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:
It’s out of this world
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Excitement guaranteed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.
Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.
However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.
SpaceX’s next Starship launch is about to attempt its biggest leap yet
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
