Latest news with #TeslaAI
Hindustan Times
24-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
‘Money can't sway me from Elon': Tesla engineer's blunt reply to Meta poaching email
Jun 24, 2025 09:16 PM IST A senior Tesla AI engineer has sparked buzz on social media after publicly sharing a screenshot of a recruitment email from Meta and shared his sharp response turning it down. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior engineer at Tesla AI, posted a screenshot of an email on X, purportedly showing Meta approaching him to join their AI team.(Reuters, Representational) Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior engineer at Tesla AI, posted a screenshot of an email on X, purportedly showing Meta approaching him to join their AI team. The recruiter's message revealed that this was a 'final attempt' to connect, stating that the tech giant wanted engineering leaders like Tsai. 'I wanted to reach out one last time as I am sure you get many of these messages and wanted to make sure this one didn't get lost in the shuffle. I do really think you would find some of our new endeavours to be quite interesting. We need engineering leaders such as yourself to really make the dreams of the future a reality. Do you have a couple of minutes to tell you a bit more?," the Meta recruiter wrote. 'Making money without sense' Tsai replied to the email in his X post. 'Sorry, we are busy at launching Robotaxi and our devotion to the sustainable abundance,' he wrote. When asked why he was unwilling to take up the offer, Tsai said that he was not even slightly tempted. "No amount of money can sway me away from Elon. That's once-in-a-lifetime (probably history) opportunities. I enjoy tough environments. Making money without a sense of purpose would drive me crazy," he said. A report by the Wall Street Journal stated that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been reaching out to top AI engineers and researchers, offering pay packages as high as $100 million, to convince them to join a team to build his Superintelligence lab. Reports have claimed that the tech titan has reached out to talent at OpenAI and even tried to buy other AI startups.
CNET
23-06-2025
- Automotive
- CNET
Tesla's Robotaxi Service Hits the Road in Austin, With Riders Sharing Their Experiences
Table of Contents Tesla's Robotaxi Service Hits the Road in Austin, With Riders Sharing Their Experiences Tesla's robotaxi service kicked off in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, with the cars picking up paying passengers without a driver behind the wheel for the first time. "The @Tesla_AI robotaxi launch begins in Austin this afternoon with customers paying a $4.20 flat fee!" Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted to X on Sunday. Earlier this month, Musk had said Tesla's robotaxi service would "tentatively" launch June 22, and indeed it did. In another Sunday post on X, Musk applauded the Tesla software and chip design teams, calling the robotaxi service the "culmination of a decade of hard work" and noting that "Both the AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla." A select group of influencers got to take the new self-driving service for a spin aboard Tesla's Model Y vehicles, in a limited area of Austin. The robotaxi service will start by using Tesla's existing vehicles before the company eventually launches its purpose-built Cybercab vehicle, which has no steering wheel or pedals. Musk has said production on that vehicle would kick off "before 2027." Tesla reposted a handful of rider experiences in Austin, showing passengers climbing aboard and getting dropped off, and the vehicle navigating roads and speed bumps and dodging pedestrians. The videos show an employee sitting in the passenger seat to ensure everything's running smoothly, but no one in the driver's seat. In the leadup to the Austin launch, Tesla began testing its self-driving service with employees in the San Francisco Bay Area with a safety driver on board. In May, Musk posted on X that "for the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver's seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents." Texas is an appealing location to launch a self-driving service because of its minimal rules surrounding driverless vehicles. But on Friday, Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation requiring autonomous vehicle services to get a state permit before operating. The law goes into effect on Sept. 1. Tesla joins other self-driving companies already operating in Austin; Alphabet-owned Waymo conducts driverless rides there through a partnership with Uber, while Amazon-owned Zoox drives its test fleet in the city.
Gizmodo
22-06-2025
- Automotive
- Gizmodo
Elon Musk's Trillion-Dollar Robotaxi Gamble Is Here
The wait is finally over. After years of promises from its eccentric CEO, Tesla debuted its highly anticipated robotaxi service on June 22 in Austin, Texas, a launch that is central to the company's entire future. This isn't just about a new feature; it's the cornerstone of Elon Musk's narrative that Tesla is not merely a car company but a world-changing AI and robotics powerhouse. As the automaker faces fierce competition from Chinese rivals like BYD, the success or failure of its autonomous vision could define its next chapter. 'The @Tesla_AI robotaxi launch begins in Austin this afternoon with customers paying a $4.20 flat fee!' Musk announced on X, followed by posts congratulating his teams. The @Tesla_AI robotaxi launch begins in Austin this afternoon with customers paying a $4.20 flat fee! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 22, 2025The service kicked off with a small fleet of 10 to 20 Model Y SUVs navigating public roads. In a demo posted by Tesla, users within a specific 'geofenced' area in south Austin can hail a ride through a dedicated app. The concept is simple: a taxi with no human driver. However, the reality of this 'limited launch' is more cautious. The first rides were given to a select group of influencers and fans, and videos posted by the company show a 'safety monitor' sitting in the passenger seat, a detail at odds with the fully autonomous dream. — Tesla (@Tesla) June 22, 2025Musk himself admitted the company is being 'super paranoid about safety,' a sentiment that seems justified given a new Texas law requiring state permits for self-driving vehicles, set to take effect on September 1. Tentatively, June 22. We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift. First Tesla that drives itself from factory end of line all the way to a customer house is June 28. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2025At its core, the robotaxi is a vehicle powered by the most advanced version of Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system and a suite of eight cameras. But unlike competitors, Tesla claims its system doesn't need expensive, pre-mapped service areas. 'It just works,' the company posted on X, promising future expansion to cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. For Musk, this is the culmination of a long-standing promise. He envisions a future fleet, including a new 'Cybercab' and 'Robovan' with no steering wheels or pedals, that could boost Tesla's market value by an astonishing $5 trillion to $10 trillion. On June 20, Tesla was worth $1.04 trillion, the 11th most valuable company globally. By comparison, Microsoft ($3.54T), Nvidia ($3.50T), and Apple ($3.00T) top the leaderboard. Financial bulls share his optimism. 'My view is the golden age of autonomous vehicles starting on Sunday in Austin for Tesla,' said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. 'I believe it's a trillion dollar valuation opportunity for Tesla.' Investor Cathie Wood's ARK Invest predicts robotaxis could account for 90% of Tesla's profits by 2029. If they are right, this weekend's launch was existential. 🚨BREAKING: Dan Ives says Tesla's biggest growth chapter starts Sunday with Robotaxis He calls it a $1 trillion opportunity — Muskonomy (@muskonomy) June 21, 2025But there's a huge problem: Tesla may be late to the party. Waymo, Google's self-driving unit and the current market leader, already operates in Austin with a larger service area, as well as in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Zoox, backed by Amazon, is live in Las Vegas and San Francisco and is testing in several other cities. The question isn't whether Tesla's robotaxis will work. It's whether they'll work better and faster than everyone else's. This fierce competition has led skeptics to dismiss Musk's grand projections. They argue that Tesla is unlikely to dominate a market where established players already have a significant head start. 'What valuation will be attached to Tesla autonomy when it has to split the autonomous ride hailing market with others?' asks investor Gary Black, whose fund has sold all of its Tesla shares. The $TSLA debate is not about Tesla robotaxi vs Waymo or Zoox, or whether TSLA robotaxi will work at 99.99% efficacy. Of course it will work or Elon wouldn't be moving forward with the Austin robotaxi launch today. The question – which bulls painfully avoid – is when others… — Gary Black (@garyblack00) June 22, 2025This is the multi-trillion-dollar question. Is the Austin launch the dawn of Tesla's next great chapter, or is it a cautious, overhyped entry into a race it may have already lost?
Business Insider
22-06-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
Tesla officially launches robotaxis in Austin to a small group of users, charging a $4.20 flat fee per ride
On a balmy Sunday in Austin, Tesla fans awaited the promise of the future. After a few hours of delays, that promise finally came true, and a select group took their first rides, livestreaming their experience. While Tesla robotaxis are meant to be fully autonomous, Tesla employees were still present in the passenger seat of the cars for safety reasons. Earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased the launch of the robotaxi, a driverless Tesla Model Y emblazoned with its namesake in Cybertruck-style font. "Beautifully simple design," Musk wrote on X. "These are unmodified Tesla cars coming straight from the factory, meaning that every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised self-driving," he added. On Sunday, Musk said the first Tesla robotaxi rides would be available for a flat fee of $4.20. A small group of invited users was the first to try them out. Tesla fans buzzed on social media in the lead-up to the official launch, which was initially delayed as users awaited the release of the official Tesla robotaxi app. "We are approaching the window where we expected to have the app and showing everything," Chuck Cook, one of the early invitees to try the Tesla robotaxi, said on X. "There looks like there will be a small delay in the distribution of the app for couple hours." Tesla AI, the division behind the robotaxis, said Sunday on X that Tesla robotaxis will eventually be deployed anywhere they are approved and are designed for "scalability." "It does not require expensive, specialized equipment or extensive mapping of service areas. It just works," the company said. The company launched a website where users can sign up for early access when the service becomes available in their area. It also launched an X feed dedicated to Tesla robotaxis. With the launch of Tesla robotaxis, Austin continued to solidify itself as a new theater for Silicon Valley's race to shape the new age of driverless transportation. In March, Google-backed Waymo launched its autonomous ride-hailing service in partnership with Uber. Waabi, a Canadian startup backed by Uber and Nvidia, is set to launch fully autonomous trucks in Texas this year. Zoox, backed by Amazon, opened its first robotaxi serial production facility in Austin last week. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Hindustan Times
04-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
What Elon Musk said about the Chennai-educated man who runs the show at Tesla AI
A post by Elon Musk mentioning Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla AI, has gone viral. In his share, Musk revealed that Elluswamy was the first person he interviewed for a position in the company. He talked about the Chennai-educated techie while replying to his own post from years ago. 'Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact autopilot@ the tech mogul had written in his old post on X, then called Twitter. 'This tweet 9 years ago was how I started the Autopilot, now AI, team at Tesla. Ashok, who now leads the team, was the first person I interviewed. Milan, who leads Optimus, also joined very early. Many of the key people in Tesla AI have been there from the beginning,' Musk wrote in his 2025 post. X users posted varied comments, expressing their opinions about Elluswamy, questioning Musk's absence from Tesla, and discussing the company's products. Also Read: Elon Musk was the lowest-paid S&P 500 CEO in 2024. Tesla gave him $0: Report An individual remarked, 'Ashok chillin right now!' Another asked Grok, 'Will you be part of a Tesla too? If yes, when?' The AI chatbot replied, 'I'm Grok, created by xAI. Yes, I'm likely integrated into Tesla vehicles as of June 2025, enhancing voice commands. Evidence suggests a public rollout this month, following employee testing with Software Update Exact dates aren't confirmed, but the timeline aligns with recent announcements. Stay tuned for official updates!' A third remarked, 'It's crazy how short a time it's been. I know everyone wanted it yesterday, but seriously, 10 years is such a short time for this crazy progress. Congrats to the team!' A fourth wrote, 'How does it feel being back at work, and fixing problems that can actually be fixed?' In an article on X in 2024, the Indian techie wrote that Elon Musk has been the 'key driver of AI and autonomy at Tesla.' He talked about Autopilot, which 'started on a ridiculously tiny computer that only had ~384 KB of memory and puny compute.' He also spoke about the tech entrepreneur's contributions to AI and how Tesla stands out from being 'just a car company.'
