Elon Musk And Tesla AI Chief Fire Back At Reports Linking FSD To Fatal Texas Crash - Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Elon Musk and Tesla’s AI chief pushed back against reports linking Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) to a fatal crash in Katy, Texas, on June 19. Musk responded on X to a user’s criticism of a report that a driver allegedly activated driver-assistance technology as a Tesla Model 3 struck a home, killing Martha Avila Mantilla, 76. Musk said the FSD system is designed to slow “through neighborhood streets” and argued the incident was a “high speed crash.” Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s AI lead, said the driver manually overrode the system by pressing the accelerator to 100% and that the vehicle reached 73 mph before the crash, calling the reporting “blatantly irresponsible” and claiming FSD is safer than manual driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it will probe the incident, after which it has moved an FSD-related investigation of 3.2 million vehicles to Engineering Analysis.