According to Sawyer Merritt, Tesla has opened registration for its FSD Supervised Ride-Along event, providing participants with an opportunity to experience Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology in real-world conditions (source: Sawyer Merritt on Twitter). This initiative highlights the practical deployment of AI-powered autonomous driving systems and offers valuable insights for businesses evaluating the integration of advanced AI solutions in mobility and logistics. The event is expected to showcase the maturity of Tesla’s AI stack, promote broader acceptance of AI-driven vehicles, and create new business opportunities in autonomous fleet management and smart transportation ecosystems.

According to Sawyer Merritt, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli reaffirmed a Buy rating and a $509 price target for Tesla after personally experiencing Tesla's robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. The analyst highlighted that the autonomous driving system demonstrated advanced AI capabilities by effectively navigating two complex real-world scenarios, underscoring Tesla's leadership in AI-powered self-driving technology. This positive assessment signals growing business opportunities for fully autonomous ride-hailing services and strengthens Tesla's competitive position in the AI mobility market (source: Sawyer Merritt on Twitter).

According to Sawyer Merritt, Tesla is offering a 40-day free trial of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) (Supervised) V14 to approximately 1.5 million HW4 Tesla owners in North America who have not yet purchased the FSD package. This extended trial period, which surpasses the previously rumored 30-day offer, allows users to experience advanced autonomous driving features through Christmas and into the New Year. The strategic timing aims to boost user engagement and encourage eventual FSD adoption, highlighting Tesla’s push to expand its AI-powered assisted driving technology in the consumer automotive market (Source: Sawyer Merritt on Twitter, November 30, 2025).

According to Sawyer Merritt on X, Elon Musk stated that legacy automakers have not demonstrated genuine interest in licensing Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. Musk explained that when traditional automakers occasionally approach Tesla, they only propose limited pilot programs with unrealistic requirements and long timelines, making meaningful AI-powered automotive partnerships unlikely for now (source: x.com/elonmusk/status/1993035990462795922). This reluctance from established automakers highlights challenges in industry-wide adoption of advanced autonomous driving AI, potentially delaying mass-market deployment of self-driving solutions and slowing AI-driven transformation within the automotive sector.

According to Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) on Twitter, the latest Tesla HW4 Model X running FSD version 13 delivers a significant leap in autonomous driving performance. Karpathy highlights that the AI-driven Full Self-Driving system is now exceptionally smooth, confident, and consistently outperforms previous HW3 versions. Notably, the vehicle handled complex city scenarios, intricate left turns, and highway navigation without requiring human intervention, reducing typical post-drive issues to zero. Karpathy attributes these improvements to Tesla's data-driven, end-to-end neural network approach, as discussed in Ashok Elluswamy’s recent ICCV25 presentation, which leverages multi-modal sensor streams and continuous fleet learning. This robust AI stack positions Tesla as a leader in scalable autonomous driving, offering substantial business opportunities in robotaxi services, fleet management, and AI robotics platforms. (Source: @karpathy, Twitter; @aelluswamy, ICCV25 talk)

According to Sawyer Merritt, Elon Musk's 2025 CEO Performance Award shares have officially been issued, split into 12 tranches totaling 423.7 million shares, as detailed in a new SEC filing. Each tranche is only earned if Tesla meets rigorous performance goals, a structure designed to incentivize milestone achievements in AI-powered autonomous driving, robotics, and data-driven manufacturing. The shares, held in Musk’s revocable trust and voted by proxy, cannot currently be voted by Musk himself, ensuring compliance and governance transparency. The vesting timeline, extending to 2033 or 2035 based on when tranches are earned, aligns with Tesla’s strategic roadmap for AI advancement and market leadership. This award structure underscores Tesla’s commitment to long-term AI innovation and positions the company to capture emerging opportunities in autonomous vehicles, AI-powered manufacturing, and global AI mobility solutions (source: Sawyer Merritt, SEC filing).

According to Sawyer Merritt, Tesla's shareholder proposal to authorize investment in xAI received more votes in favor (1,058,999,435) than against (916,321,296), but a significant number of shareholders abstained (473,073,20). Since Tesla's bylaws count abstentions as votes against, the proposal was not approved. This outcome delays potential strategic collaboration between Tesla and xAI, an emerging player in artificial intelligence. The board will review the high abstention rate before deciding on future steps. For the AI industry, this decision postpones possible synergies in AI research, autonomous driving, and data infrastructure, but also signals strong shareholder scrutiny over large AI investments (Source: Sawyer Merritt, Twitter).

According to Sawyer Merritt, Tesla has announced a strategic partnership with Samsung to manufacture advanced semiconductors in the U.S. specifically designed for AI inference and training workloads. This move strengthens Tesla's position in the AI hardware supply chain and directly addresses ongoing demand for high-performance compute. Additionally, Tesla has expanded its AI training compute capacity, bringing its Cortex infrastructure to a total of 81,000 H100 equivalents. This significant increase enables faster model training and supports Tesla's ambitions in autonomous driving and AI-powered services, presenting substantial business opportunities in AI chip design and large-scale training infrastructure (source: Sawyer Merritt, Twitter, Oct 22, 2025).