

News
Elon Musk’s companies currently provide jobs to ~110k people worldwide
Elon Musk recently shared a rather interesting update on Twitter — his companies now employ about 110,000 people worldwide. This is quite impressive considering that in the grand scheme of things, Tesla, SpaceX, and Musk’s other ventures are still just getting started.
Musk’s update came as a response to a TSLA bull on Twitter who inquired if his companies had already reached the 100,000-employee milestone. Musk’s response revealed that his companies had not only met their 100,000 employee mark — they had already passed it.
Elon Musk did not share further details about his companies’ worldwide employee headcount, though there is a good chance that the lion’s share of his workers today are in the United States and China. These are the two countries where Tesla, one of Musk’s largest companies, has operational vehicle production plants, after all.
Considering that Tesla is yet to start operations in its two new vehicle production facilities in Europe and Texas, the EV maker’s worldwide employee headcount would probably grow even more rapidly in the near future. Gigafactory Berlin is still expected to start Model Y production in Germany later this year, and the same is true for Giga Texas. Both facilities are expected to employ thousands of workers as they ramp their vehicle production and as they launch their own dedicated battery cell plants.
It should also be noted that the roughly 110,000 employees that Elon Musk mentioned are only those directly hired by his companies per se. The numbers for indirect jobs related to his projects, such as Tesla’s supply chain, are likely even more impressive.
Elon Musk’s other companies such as SpaceX and The Boring Company are also expanding their workforce, as they attempt more ambitious projects such as the Starship program and the expansions to the Vegas Loop. Other companies related to Musk such as Neuralink are also actively hiring to expand its workforce.
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Elon Musk
Tesla seems to have fixed one of Full Self-Driving’s most annoying features
Tesla seems to have resolved an issue that many users of the Full Self-Driving suite complained about recently.

Tesla seems to have listened to drivers and owners who complained about a very annoying feature that monitors the eyes of the vehicle operator while using the Full Self-Driving suite.
Earlier this month, owners complained that versions of Full Self-Driving Supervised were too quick to alert drivers of their eyes going off the road, which is required for operation.
Tesla to fix an FSD driver monitoring annoyance, Elon Musk hints
If you’re doing something as simple as adjusting HVAC settings or changing Autopilot speed offset, the cabin-facing camera would alert the driver that their eyes need to be on the road.
It was incredibly quick to warn you, and many argued that changing these features while the vehicle is using FSD is safer than doing it while operating the car manually.
After several complaints, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he agreed with the fact that FSD would warn drivers so quickly. When a user on X noted that “I can’t even glance at the display to add a nav stop without getting yelled at” and stated it was what they hated most about FSD, Musk replied, “You’re right.”
You’re right
— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 6, 2025
Tesla is now rolling out a new update of the FSD suite with v13.2.9, which includes various improvements. One of which appears to be a less dramatic driver monitoring system, which includes perhaps a slightly longer grace period before it will alert you to look at the road.
Several owners are reporting they’ve noticed a change, with it being less restrictive than previously:
cabin camera seems significantly less annoying in 13.2.9
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) May 15, 2025
I noticed that last night. I was using my phone to drop an address I forgot to share before and it didn’t start flashing in .5 seconds.
— Greggertruck (@greggertruck) May 15, 2025
Driver monitoring is very important, considering people do abuse FSD and its capabilities. It is important to pay attention, even if you are overwhelmingly confident in the abilities of FSD, because, in the event of an accident, Tesla will be the one to take the bad publicity for it.
This is even if the driver is found liable for the accident.
However, from personal experience, the alerts it gave were slightly dramatic, and I felt that they were over the top. I was admonished by the driver monitoring system for simply adjusting the Autopilot speed offset.
Many owners welcome this change. FSD is being refined with every update, becoming more robust, accurate, and less naggy with its requests.
News
Tesla details latest safety addition with new Model Y
Tesla’s newest safety feature isn’t even visible to the human eye when you get in the new Model Y

Tesla has detailed the addition of its latest safety feature that comes standard with the new Model Y. It is a feature that has been in development for several years and aims to assist in saving lives while also enabling other safety features.
Within the past few years, Tesla has been developing an in-cabin radar that was aimed at detecting humans left in the vehicle that typical cameras would not detect. It was a feature that was initially developed to save the lives of children, who die a handful of times each year from being left in cabins without air conditioning.
Teslarati first reported on the development of an in-cabin radar system several years ago through Federal Communications Commission (FCC) documents, which showed Tesla was hoping to gain approval for a wave sensor that would detect heartbeats instead of relying on cameras.
Tesla safety tech takes giant step with FCC approval for wave sensor
The company has started using the in-cabin radar system with the new Model Y, which has been available in the U.S. for several months. Tesla has released the new Model Y Owner’s Manual online, which gives us a first-hand look at the details it released on the various advancements it has made with the newest version of the best-selling vehicle in the world.

Credit: Tesla
As shown above, the Model Y’s new cabin radar is located above the rearview mirror and behind the ceiling gear shifter buttons.
Tesla describes its duties:
“Cabin radar can detect the presence of people inside the vehicle and use the measurements to determine occupancy. Cabin radar supports certain vehicle and safety features, including driver detection, seat occupancy, Occupant Classification System (OCS), and auto parking brake engagement.”
Interestingly, Tesla has added that it will be able to enable auto parking brake engagement, a great feature for when someone exits the vehicle. In the past, we knew it would handle driver and occupant protection, but we did not recognize its value as a way to enable a parking brake.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s Elon Musk clarifies shocking Optimus fact
Musk clarified that while Optimus is already impressive today, it is still very far from its planned final form.

This week has been a tour de force of Tesla Optimus demonstrations. But even with the humanoid robot’s already impressive capabilities, CEO Elon Musk dropped a comment that truly made Optimus even more exciting.
Inasmuch as Optimus today is likely one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the industry, it is still nothing close to what Tesla really wants to create.
Optimus Demonstrations
Optimus’ demonstrations this week caught headlines because they showed the humanoid robot performing impressive dance moves. Initially, a video posted by Elon Musk on social media platform X showed Optimus dancing while being tethered to a cable. A follow up video upped the ante, with Optimus performing actual ballet moves without any support.
Comments from Tesla Vice President of Optimus (Tesla Bot) Milan Kovac revealed that the humanoid robot’s movements were fully learned in simulation and zero-shot transferred to real without extra training. Elon Musk later joked that he would be accompanied by a troupe of dancing Optimus robots at the 2024 Tesla Annual Shareholder Meeting.
Not Even Close
But in another follow-up comment on X, Musk clarified that while Optimus is already impressive today, it is still very far from its planned final form. This was quite surprising as the humanoid robot is already in initial production at the Fremont Factory. Even in its current state, Optimus also looks production-ready. Elon Musk even noted that Optimus robots are just walking around Tesla’s factories today around the clock, charging themselves as needed.

With this in mind, one could wonder what Optimus’ final form could really be like. While the humanoid robot’s current iteration is already pretty sleek, perhaps Tesla is still developing Optimus until its appearance could mirror the robot’s static display model that the company showed off back in 2021. That Optimus model featured very human proportions and joints, making it look more like an android from a sci-fi flick than a humanoid robot with obvious mechanical parts.
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