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Elon Musk’s Tesla, SpaceX top list of most attractive employers for engineering students
Employer branding specialist Universum has released its 2019 rankings for the most attractive employers in the United States. Based on the firm’s findings, which were tabulated from a survey of tens of thousands of students from hundreds of universities, it appears that two of Elon Musk’s companies, SpaceX and Tesla, are perceived by engineering students as the best employers in the country.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private space company, was dubbed by engineering students as the No. 1 employer they wish to work for, dethroning NASA, which topped last year’s rankings. Among the respondents of Universum’s survey, 20.7% of engineering students listed the disruptive space firm among their Top 5 ideal companies. SpaceX moved up significantly in this year’s rankings too, as the company was ranked No. 3 in the branding firm’s survey in 2018.
Tesla stood proudly at No. 2 in Universum’s rankings, with18.7% of engineering students listing the electric car maker as one of their Top 5 ideal employers. Tesla was also ranked 2nd in the branding firm’s 2018 surveys, which all but highlights the strength of the company’s brand. This is all the more impressive if one were to consider the noise from skeptics surrounding the company, which have largely dominated the news cycle around Tesla for the past months.
Both Tesla and SpaceX are known for being workplaces that are incredibly challenging. During the early days of SpaceX, the company’s recruiting pitch was simple: it was the “special forces” in the space industry. This pitch, which all but highlights the hard work and dedication required of all SpaceX employees, all but became a beacon that attracted the most dedicated workers. As history would show, being special forces has its merits, as SpaceX currently offers employees the opportunity to work for a company that quite literally is leading the private space race.
Tesla, for its part, is known to be just as challenging as SpaceX. While one could argue that electric car manufacturing is not as complicated as rocket science, the sheer scale of Tesla’s operations is enough to keep every employee busy. As noted by a study from Handshake, a student career-services app, last year, this intense work culture is actually among the reasons why applicants consider the electric car maker as an attractive place of employment.
One common denominator between SpaceX and Tesla that is likely compelling for job-seekers is CEO Elon Musk, whose style of leadership is equal parts daunting and inspiring. While Musk is known to be a leader who demands a lot from his employees, he is also a leader that prefers to stay in the front lines. During the challenging days of Tesla’s Model X and Model 3 production ramps, Musk slept in the company’s Fremont factory, just so he could address any issues in the facility as they arose. Anecdotes from the Tesla community during the construction of GA4 also indicate that Musk was among the workers torquing bolts in the new Model 3 assembly line.
This extends to Musk’s use of Tesla’s technologies as well. As indicated in a report from The Information that featured accounts from members of Tesla’s Autopilot team, Musk uses himself as a test subject for the company’s driver-assist software. Musk’s personal vehicle is loaded with pre-released “development build” Autopilot versions, which allow him to push the driver-assist software to its limits. This practice has allowed Tesla to quickly spot Autopilot’s areas for improvement, though according to the publication’s sources, it has also resulted in Musk finding himself in “situations that many of us wouldn’t want to be in.”
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
