News
Tesla pledges to keep Ukrainian workers’ employment and salary if they serve in military
Tesla employees from Ukraine who have been asked to return to their country to fight in the ongoing war against Russia will keep their employment and be paid their salary for three months. Following the three months, Tesla would reassess the conflict in the region and their employees’ situation to decide what should be done next.
“For any Tesla employee who is a Ukrainian national and has been asked to return to Ukraine for active duty as a reservist, we will maintain their employment and salary for 3 months, with a view to assessing after this period as needed,” the email read.
The message was related in an email sent by Axel Tangen, Tesla’s director of Northern Europe. The message was sent on Monday to employees in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, 12 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Apart from assuring Tesla employees that they will be keeping their employment if they fight in the war, Tangen’s email also extended praise to Tesla workers who helped SpaceX set up Starlink terminals in the country. According to the email, Tesla’s Energy team assembled and provided Tesla Powerwalls to help run Starlink equipment in Ukraine.
Tesla’s Energy team used PV inverters given by the company’s certified installer network, pre-made DC cables given by a Supercharger Installation Partner, and AC cables made out of scrap from Giga Berlin to help set up Starlink stations in Ukraine. With a fleet of Powerwalls supporting the Starlink stations in the country, Ukraine would likely be able to maintain its connection to the internet even when power interruptions happen.
Following is Tangen’s email in full (as retrieved and shared by CNBC).
Date: March 7, 2022 [Time redacted]
Subject: Conflict Support
To: DL-EU-NO-All
From: Axel Tangen
Hi Team,
Sharing this message from Joe Ward and Mariam Khalifa:
As you know, Tesla is committed to do the right thing. Whilst the situation in Ukraine is evolving, we wanted to share with you what actions are being taken to support those impacted by the conflict.
Many folks have reached to understand how they can contribute, which is awesome. It’s important we show them how we as a company are helping, what resources we have in place, and how they can also proactively support themselves. Big thanks to all of the teams that have contributed to these efforts so far – true Tesla spirit on display.
*As a priority HR EMEA team members have been connecting with employees impacted as well as their managers to ensure we check in. We will continue to ensure we provide meaningful and targeted support for our employees.
For any Tesla employees who is a Ukrainian national and has been asked to return to Ukraine for active duty as a reservist, we will maintain their employment and salary for 3 months, with a view to assessing after this period as needed.
*Tesla has opened free Supercharging at stations bordering Ukraine to support those impacted by the recent invasion. Within hours of implementation, Tesla emailed local owners announcing that several Supercharger stations near Ukraine could be used by Tesla and non-Tesla electric vehicles, free of charge. Although Tesla does not officially operates within Ukraine, any of the country’s estimated 5,000 Tesla owners can access free Supercharging at select stations in Poland, Hungary Slovakia.
*Tesla teamed up with SpaceX to provide coverage expansion for its Starlink services to help provide an alternative internet infrastructure.
*Volunteers across the Giga Berlin and Germany Service team responded quickly on Sunday to test, configure, pack and ship several hundred Starlink units which have already been gratefully received by Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Minister. In true Tesla fashion, the solution has been put together in less than 3 days.
*On top of this the Energy team supplemented the Starlink roll out with a fleet Powerwalls. The system included PV inverters given by our Certified installer network, pre-made DC cables given by one of our Supercharger Installation Partners and AC cables made out out of scrap from Giga Berlin. All of it assembled by a team of (40+) volunteers from across the EMEA organization, committed to doing what they can to support.
*In addition, we have reinforced Tesla EMEA Employee Assistance Programme. The Programme offers counseling and numerous resources and support for employees.
Lastly, employees can of course support by making cash donations to reputable relief organizations responding in Ukraine, this is not an exhaustive list and you can of course make donation to an organisation of your choice.
UNCHR
UNICEF
Red Cross
World Food Program
World Health Organization
If you have any further thoughts or ideas with regards how we can be supporting our employees and those impacted by the crisis, please do not hesitate to connect with us.
The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
Musk says Tesla and SpaceX will build and run Terafab, with TSMC limited to renting.
Elon Musk has drawn a firm line around who will be in charge of Terafab, the giant chip factory Tesla and SpaceX are planning in Texas.
Musk replied to a post on X arguing that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would most likely end up owning and operating the plant. “No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that,” Musk wrote. “Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.”
In plain terms, a sublease means TSMC could rent a section of the complex to make chips, similar to a tenant renting one floor of an office tower. The building, the equipment decisions and the daily operation would stay with Tesla and SpaceX.
@herbertong @thejefflutz No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that.
Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2026
The comment shuts down speculation that started last week. On October 2, tech journalist Tim Culpan reported that TSMC was exploring ways to help run Terafab’s factories. Musk responded the next day that it was “just discussions, but something may come of it,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That left room for a scenario where the world’s largest contract chipmaker took the wheel. Musk’s latest post closes that door.
Some background helps explain why this matters. Tesla designs its own AI chips today but pays outside companies like TSMC and Samsung to manufacture them. Musk unveiled Terafab in March as a joint project between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, arguing that existing suppliers cannot expand fast enough to meet his companies’ future demand. The goal is to produce enough chips each year to supply one terawatt of computing power, roughly 50 times what the entire global AI chip industry produces now.
Those chips are meant for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, the Cybercab and Full Self-Driving computers, along with chips for SpaceX’s planned data centers in orbit. Owning the factory means Musk’s companies would not have to compete with every other chip customer for time on someone else’s production lines.
Intel is still part of the picture. The company signed on in April to help design, build and package chips for the project, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg this week that Intel will keep working on Terafab despite the TSMC chatter.
The project moved from concept to construction planning over the summer. In August, SpaceX confirmed the Grimes County site about an hour from Houston, sent the county a $10 million payment under its tax abatement deal and said civil work would begin shortly. The first phase carries a $16.8 billion price tag, and total spending across all phases could reach as much as $119 billion.
TSMC chairman C.C. Wei has said a new fab typically takes two to three years to build and another one to two years to reach full output. Tesla and SpaceX have never run one, which is why TSMC’s expertise drew so much attention. Musk’s answer suggests he would rather learn that process in house than hand control of a project this central to Tesla’s robotics and autonomy plans to an outside company.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. https://t.co/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
Elon Musk
Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK
Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at Thursday’s White House summit.
Elon Musk is set to receive the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers.
President Donald Trump will present Musk with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s Science: A New Golden Age Summit, Fox News Digital first reported on Wednesday. Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su will receive the same medal, while Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. A White House official later confirmed the list to Reuters.
“The Trump administration is grateful for the contributions of these incredible leaders in science and technology. These recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told Fox News.
FIRST ON FOX: Trump will award Elon Musk the National Medal of Science at the White House Thursday.
Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su will also receive the science medal, while Michael Dell and Satya Nadella will receive the technology medal.
It marks Trump’s first time presenting the awards across either administration.
Full story here https://t.co/omnrLV0EwS
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) October 7, 2026
It will be the first time Trump has presented either medal in his two terms. Congress created the National Medal of Science in 1959, and the National Science Foundation, which administers it, says 529 scientists and engineers have received it since. A presidential committee reviews nominees, but the president makes the final call.
Thursday’s group of medalists run or founded companies, and three of them sit at the center of the Super Intelligence hardware race that Musk competes in. Huang’s Nvidia supplies the GB300 chips filling SpaceX’s Colossus 2 cluster, while Su’s AMD is Nvidia’s biggest rival in data center GPUs.
Worth noting that Trump’s uncle, MIT physicist John G. Trump, received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan for his work on ionizing radiation and its uses in medicine and industry.
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
For Musk, the medal is the latest sign of how far his relationship with Trump has come since their 2025 split over the “Big Beautiful Bill” and his exit from DOGE. Last week, he sat at Trump’s left during a White House lunch where AI executives signed a voluntary safety accord, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named him to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare. Musk has also adopted the administration’s new vocabulary, saying on Sunday that SpaceXAI will be renamed SpaceXSI after Trump ordered federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence.”
Musk has collected science honors before, including the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication in 2019.
Lifestyle
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
Tesla shares dashcam footage of FSD Supervised stopping mid intersection to avoid a T-bone crash.
Tesla is putting another Full Self-Driving save in front of its 24.8 million followers on X.
On Tuesday morning, Tesla’s main account shared a dashcam clip with the caption “FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash.” The footage came from an owner posting as TheNewGrid, who described what happened at a stop sign: “I looked at the car coming to the stop sign figured they would stop, my car went, then came to a stop mid intersection as they flew by. Had I been manually driving this would have resulted in a crash.”
The sequence is the notable part. FSD had already started crossing when the other driver ran the stop sign. Instead of pressing on, the car braked hard in the middle of the intersection and let the crossing vehicle pass in front of it. By the owner’s own account, they had made the same assumption the software initially made, that the other car would stop, and would not have corrected in time.
FSD Supervised preventing T-bone crash
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
The clip is the latest in a run of safety posts Tesla has amplified over the past several days. On Saturday, the company shared a video from Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim, who sold his Bentley for a Model Y and said he was buying Teslas with FSD for 10 of his employees. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla AI, followed up by writing that Tesla self-driving “reacts to other people cutting into your path with super-human response times.” On Monday, a Cybertruck owner posted footage of FSD moving across three lanes from a red light to clear a path for an ambulance approaching from behind.
This recent clip also lands a few weeks after Tesla began shipping Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD v14.3.9, a feature that can activate FSD on the driver’s behalf when a frontal collision is imminent or the driver appears distracted. Elluswamy said in September that “even earlier prediction of hazards, even faster reaction time and overall significantly better safety and collision avoidance” are coming with v15, the release Tesla has tied to round the clock Robotaxi operation.
The safety messaging matters beyond social media. Tesla has said FSD Supervised was 4.1 times less likely to crash than manual driving across 100 million kilometers on European roads, and it has been putting those figures in front of regulators. Eight EU countries have now approved FSD Supervised, with Croatia the most recent, but the EU’s bloc-wide vote originally set for October 6 has been pushed to December at the earliest.
FSD Supervised is still a Level 2 system, and the driver remains responsible at all times. Even heavy users find reasons to step in. Teslarati’s Joey Klender, who uses FSD for about 76 percent of his driving, laid out five recurring issues on Tuesday that still prompt him to intervene. Clips like this one show the other column of that ledger: moments where the software caught a mistake a human was about to make.
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
Trump to hand Elon Musk a top honor that traces back to JFK
Tesla FSD changed its mind mid-intersection, and it may have saved a life
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
