In its appeal, Tesla claimed the driver was solely at fault, and the Tesla Model S was not defective
Nice
When you start doing nazi salutes you’re not going to be able to find sympathetic juries to help you in your court cases. Edit: this comment made a mod of all the other Tesla subs ban me from 5 different subreddits. Oh no whatever shall I do snowflake
Good, it is about time they started paying for Elmos lying and illegal stock pumping.
“ Jurors found Tesla 33% responsible for the crash. They awarded compensatory damages of $19.5 million to Benavides' estate and $23.1 million to Angulo, plus $200 million of punitive damages to be split between them. McGee previously settled with the plaintiffs.” $200 million of punitive damages in a case where Tesla was found in the 33% responsible seems like a lot. I’m not a fan of Tesla and I think their cars aren’t nearly as safe as people think but wow, that’s a lot of money. Hopefully those cyber truck sales pick up ha ha
Music to my ears
That's way more than just a slap on the wrist. Good to see
First the tariffs and now this. Best Friday in a while.
This should push the share price above 420.69. You can't lie, TSLA is KILLING it when it comes to FSD their accident rate is just too low not not justify $1000 and to the 🌕
Say what?!
Yeah, the US legal system baffles me. Sure, award the plaintiffs damages for their future care costs, loss of income, pain and suffering etc., sounds like they deserve it, but I’m not sure how each of them receiving a $100 million windfall on top of that makes any sense. Also, not disputing that they should have been but it’s not clear to me from the article why Tesla was even found liable in the first place. Was the vehicle running on autopilot at the time of the crash?
Punitive damages are not related to the actual liability cost. It's literally extra money to punish them for being negligent. So they often base the size of punitive damages on how much it needs to be before they'll be noticed, rather than how much the plaintiff deserves for the damages they had to live with. If you charge a company with a capitalization of $1.28 Trillion something like $100,000 it's not even an incentive to change their behavior.
I haven't read the specific case, but autopilot shutting off right before a crash just so Tesla can try to avoid legal culpability seems like a case for punitive damages.
Noice
Imagine all cases ended like this, all of Tslas profit would be wiped out quite fast..
Once you subtract what Musk has been paid already Tesla has no profits and never have.
Hell yeah! Screw Musk and his lies.
It’s not for them, it’s for Tesla not doing things correctly. A few million is absolutely nothing to them and would never cause a change in behavior.
I love this for TSLA and Musk.
Yea thats true. Well they can always put this 243 million usd as R&D expense.
The problem is that you need a board that understands fiduciary duty to have this work. And the Tesla board doesn’t.
Exactly. Otherwise companies could just do terrible things, and only have to pay the resulting costs. "We can cut corners, and just write checks here and there when people are maimed or killed? That sounds good!" It needs to HURT the company for them to have to take action. And remember - if YOU killed someone, you'd lose literally *everything*, right? You'd have your entire life taken away and be thrown in jail. Even this, just having to write a huge check, seems pretty light.
And the stock plummeted; by about 1.5%
Good.
Almost as good as Jake Paul and that other teat getting knocked out in the same weekend
I’m just wondering, if no one will buy cars from him because they hate him so much, what makes him think everyone will buy a robot from him? Lol
Yeah, the board that justified a trillion dollar stock grant to Musk probably isn't going to panic over $200 million. and shareholders are clearly in a cult at this point. But if these lawsuits start happening on every accident where autopilot just shuts off before an accident it might at least draw attention from potential buyers?
I'm guessing 70% will go to taxes and lawyer fees. We're all getting paid 🤭
This is basically the only way big corporations can be held accountable in USA. As financial crimes are legal, lying is legal, etc. Punitive damages being outrageous is only check left to ensure they don't screw up people in a major way.
IIRC both Ford and GM did exactly this. The payments to injury were deemed less that fixing the actual problems. The Ford instance was the Pinto, so it has been a thing for quite some time.
I hear cybertruck sales to SpaceX are up.
That's the one issue that's not brought up enough, and the one that Felon and his accomplices have not even pretended to address. The brand is now toxic and will remain so as long as his name is attached to it.
Tesla stock will increase on this news.
Can't wait to see when he tosses Tesla at SpaceX to dilute it.
Beta testing.
No not really. That amount that sounds like a lot to you but will do virtually nothing to hurt Tesla. Unless it moves the stock price it's a rounding error on how much they make. If they charged a percentage of their revenue as the fine that might do something to them. But this is just a big number that's not actually a big number.
Stock still gonna go up 😂. Nothing can stop Elon's pump. Sad reality
It sets the precedent that potentially opens other lawsuits. It’s about more than the money on this single verdict.
\> how each of them receiving a $100 million windfall on top of that makes any sense. How much is a human life worth? Regardless, it's a punitive amount, designed to punish them for their behavior and discourage them or others from doing it in the future.
Obligatory: this is good for Tesla (fucking somehow) Stock market doesn’t care about facts and details
I look forward to TSLA going up 7% on this news.
It's about 15% of their operating income from last quarter. That's very substantial.
Fair, but still seems bizarre to me that this is basically the only way corporations are regulated now apparently. I don’t think any other country in the world operates this way.
Idaho?
Depends. I recently was on a jury where we all agreed dude probably did that shit, but that the prosecution couldn't (not "didn't") do enough to prove it, so we just decided to give them the "mercy" of a mistrial since the jurors were never going to budge on their views. Especially the ones that saw him as guilty. The real fault though was the investigation not questioning key witnesses at the time of the incident, and that it took 10 years to take it to trial - so there were a lot of inconsistencies in testimonies between "today" and 10 years ago. The (at the time) 6 year old witness the defendant claimed could exonerate him even died of cancer. Really lends credence to "justice delayed, is justice denied." Point is though: Even if you really want to find someone guilty, it's difficult to actually get 12 people to agree on a partisan basis. I was in the "he probably did that shit, but I don't think they definitively proved it" camp.
Compared to Tesla's insane market cap, it's not high, but compared to their actual sales it's huge. They profit maybe $2400 per vehicle sold these days, on average. So, this fine represents the profits of selling ~100,000 vehicles.
Ugh if it were anywhere in the country it would certainly be Idaho.
Please look at Tesla’s actual income statement and balance sheet before saying a quarter billion dollars is a rounding error to them. You’re trying to seem smart by being jaded, but it actually shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about. They aren’t hyper profitable like Apple or Google.
I assure it has the attention of a lot of lawyers!
Yet the stock will still go up >.>
Sadly, not enough. They still sell a lot of cars. They may have permanently lost a certain politically-aware subset of the population but there are plenty of people who don't care and plenty who actively support him.
Has Elmo raged online about “liberal activist judges” yet?
Or called the guy a pedo
Yeah, this. I really don’t think the falling sales are related to the salute or fascism or Epstein. Maybe in Europe a little, sure. But I think it’s mostly because of better competition and nothing new from Tesla.
It wasn't just that....they told investigators they couldn't retrieve the crash data...it was lost forever. Cue the defendant's investigator who found it after Tesla was subpoenaed. They intentionally hid it, hence the massive punitive component
They already know their "robot" market consists of 10 or 15 crypto douche bags in miami... they just need to pretend it's not that.
Or use his taxis or his rockets to put AI servers in space. Every profitability projection for Musk’s companies depends on us seeing the type of market growth and brand adoption that Tesla saw in the 2010’s. It also depends on ignoring the fact that he has never delivered products at the price that would give them mass market appeal, so every Tesla product is a high end expensive item that relies on Tesla being a desirable brand for people to buy them. The discontinuation of the Model S proves that that no longer works.
about 4% of their yearly income, that's not so substantial sounding to me. Frankly, if they don't do something to improve their self-driving because of this, then it will be clear that it's just the cost of doing business, but I wait to be proven wrong when they start installing lidar and do national recalls which I'm sure will happen any minute now. Otherwise the people downloading me are wrong, and that amount of money lost will probably be made up within the quarter by increased government purchases.
I hope you are correct.
It's around 4% of their yearly income compared to the cost of installing lidar on all of their cars and/or a national recall. It is the cost of doing business, and a very cheap one. There are many other automakers who have absorbed larger lawsuits as opposed to doing recalls (both in nominal terms and as a percentage of their income). You can go and look that up It sounds like you're trying to sound smart by assuming that other people don't have access to the same numbers that you do, or that somebody couldn't have a different opinion than yours because you're so self satisfied with your opinion. But yeah I'm sure it's a substantial amount and Tesla will change its behavior any second now. I'll f****** wait but if it doesn't happen well then I guess my opinion was the correct one. !remindMe 3 months u/SurvivorNovak the thinks that the fine paid by Tesla was substantial and that as a substantial fine it wouldn change their behavior regarding safety standards
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👏🏾 👏🏾 👏🏾
That’s about same amount he paid for his Trump cheating device!
stock should go up
Really? You wouldn't be at all upset if you were dinged at work and lost 4% of your yearly income, lol?
4% by definition is not a rounding error. Rounding errors are below 1%. Also, at 4% just a couple more of these would significantly affect Tesla’s FCF and stock price. This is one of their incentives for trying to improve the safety of FSD, in addition to the brand damage that accrues with every incident. Have a great day.
For a single case? And it sets a precedent, so it's quite substantial.
I couldn't disagree more. All non-monopolistic markets as they mature find increased competition which drives down margins. A competitor who has not pissed of the educated liberal class will out perform Tesla under Musk because their potential customer base is broader. Not only is there world wide hatred (deserved) of Musk, there is also world wide anger at America (deserved) over tariffs, abuse of power, corruption, support for Putin, and so on. It still however baffles me how all the false dawn promises made by Musk has not totally destroyed his credibility with the seemingly endless gullibility of some people.
Don't speak logic so loudly, the fragile egos of the stockholders might get upset with something as banal as a profit per vehicle. Don't you realise that Tesla is no longer a car company? /s
BOOOommmm!!!!!!
Well for a person who earns $40,000 a year, that would be $1,000. I mean you basically lost more than that to inflation this year. It's like 3 dollars a day so I guess I'd have oatmeal instead of going to lunch 2 times per month, and not change my behavior at all otherwise treating myself to going out to eat maybe 7 times instead of 9.
The population rich enough to replace the inconvinience of having to put up with the working class in their fiefdoms... blots on the views of their well manicured realms.... They can afford a lot of robots...
Oh thanks Mr. Semantics, I'll let you know if I need more of your talking down to me from your dictionary. Why don't I just run everything I say past you so I can get more nagging. I mean it could, but it ain't now. I'd be really surprised if anything comes from this other than more lies from Elon. Have a day
if it changes their behavior, then it's substantial and I don't think it will. But feel free to open up a poly market bet about whether or not they add lidar or do national recalls and I will absolutely bet against it. Edit I wouldn't go short right now though. This sounds like a time when contrarians would buy.
Sounds like a criminal trial. The bar is lower in civil cases.
No, only the other super corrupt shithole countries.
Tell me you don’t know how money works without telling me. Lol. 243M in cash walking out the door isn’t a rounding error for any company in the world.
How money works is you see a big number and don't know that it's only 4% of their yearly income? Tell me you think a lot more of your opinion than I do. But whatever, enjoy whatever job you're making somebody else money at.
How many Cybertruck sales does that erase?
what profits???
The punitive damage was so high, because Tesla did not cooperate/actively worked against the investigation into what happened at the crash. The plaintive had to hire a specialist that looked into a chip in the car to confirm that logs were uploaded to Tesla's datacenters and specify search parameters so Tesla could not avoid providing the logs. Tesla themselves had said previously that the logs were gone, but the plaintive's specialist proved differently.
Damn! That’s unreal. That makes sense.
Just wait until robotaxis start killing people. If they try to scale it at all it will result in many many verdicts like this. All they have to do to prove negligence is that they left out technology (LIDAR) to save money, and that if they hadn’t the person likely would be alive.
Current global market cap: 1.500.000 Mio $ Current sales in US: 46.400 Mio $ Profits from their sales/operations in US: ~ 1.900 Mio $ This penalty of 243 Mio $ is peanuts for them. (0.0162%, 0.5237% and 12,79% respectively) Sharing 10% of your net profit might hurt a bit. But i'm sure they'll find a way to cook this in their books...
There goes all the profit from Q1.
This verdict represents ~20% of their 2025 full years net income lol
Lol
Bad at math? 4% would be $1600. Nine other lawyers using this as a precedent and before you know it you’re looking at $16k, and yes, that would hurt someone making $40k. Badly.
$2400 ? So Elon’s $56b payout was the profit from 23,333,333 cars. That must really be demoralizing for employees.
That’s GOTTA piss Musk off - you know he doesn’t think anyone should be able to judge him on a goddamn thing.
[removed]
Ok
Hmm…. I guess Cali hasn’t woke en up to this yet as Tesla remains the number 1 ev sold in the state…. I guess they still luv em!
I think it's both, honestly. If Tesla was still the only game in town for electric cars, I think more people would grumble but then compromise their morals on the subject if they really wanted an electric car. I'm not kidding myself on that one. But now, they don't have to compromise their morals when Elon does something that they disapprove of and can go buy an electric car from someone else.
Yeah fuck that. Even if the tech worked as advertised.
What makes you think those robots would ever come out lol
News flash: you can’t cash out from market cap 🤣
All of them probably
Stock going up 50 points today…
I'd wager there are 100s of employees at TSLA who are well aware that the claims about AP are unsafe, and even participated in the faked Paint it Black video. The purpose of torts like this is to rip out ALL the rot in foul companies. TSLA has been so careless about safety that the company has forfeited any benefit of the doubt, or grace. It would not cause me to lose a wink of sleep if the entire company were dismantled, at this point.
>not actually a big number Riddle me this: Then why is TSLA fighting so hard against this in court? Why not lay down their cards and walk away from the table?
Autopilot has to be the biggest scam in automotive history as it doesn't do anything of the sort safely. It's like a 16 year old with a learner's permit. You better not ever close your eyes or think you don't have to double check every move lest it be your last.
They aren't "fighting so hard against it". They are using the legal services that they have already paid for. Company that size keeps lawyers on retainer, you pay for them whether or not you use them so you may as well use them. What they haven't done is expand which law firms are representing them or increase their legal spend. So they're doing exactly as much now as they were before this lawsuit. 🤷 The way to know if this is actually enough money to hurt them is if they start adding lidar to cars or do a massive recall or in any way address this other than just more b******* and lies. But that's not going to happen because people are pretending like what we have is an economy and at this point it appears what we have and as a pre-selected list of winners and losers based on who was closer to the government.
Net income in 2025 was 3,855 million, so this judgment is 6.3% of their profit. You also need to keep in mind their net income keeps shrinking - 2025 was down 44.6% from 2024 and all expectations are for it to fall further this year.
sure, but what do you think the odds are of this? Actually having them do a safety recall or installing lidar? I'm not saying this wouldn't be significant to some other company that had a more real world relation to fundamentals, but this company isn't that .it's basically an extension of the Trump administration. Stock markets will try to find balance between the people who 1 have known for a long time that the fundamentals are really bad and 2 the people who are blindly hero worshiping the starch and 3 the people who are cynically suspecting that we don't have a free market as much as we have an oligarchy where the winners and losers have already been long picked.
Tesla didn't get the punitive damages here because of a deficiency in their product, it was because they misled people about the capabilities of the vehicle. The company is much more cautious about how they advertise and promote their driver assistance features now (even if some of that is due to regulatory pressure rather than lawsuits).
Are they? Was making wild ass claims pretty recently
They make insane claims about what their products will be able to do in the future, but their marketing about what it does now has been toned down quite a bit.
a lot of paid influencers who are still making wild ass claims, lie all the f****** time. Maybe they did tone it down, whatever that means they are still making factually inaccurate claims, and I'm not sure what kind of a time frame you're talking about. But yeah they're still f****** lie. Edit bro https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/1rfdum0/musk_touts_california_robotaxis_but_tesla_does/
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