Sunday, August 3, 2025 - The world’s richest man, Elon Musk has vowed to appeal a court ruling ordering Tesla to pay $243 million in damages to the family of Naibel Benavides and her partner, Dillon Angulo, following a fatal 2019 crash involving the company’s Autopilot system.
A jury in Florida found Tesla partly responsible for the
death of Benavides, who was stargazing when she was struck by a Tesla Model S
in Key Largo. The collision launched her 75 feet through the air, and her body
was later discovered in a wooded area. Her boyfriend, Angulo, sustained severe
injuries.
While the driver, George McGee, admitted to being distracted
by his phone during the incident and previously settled separately with the
victims' families, the court concluded that Tesla shared liability. Jurors
agreed with the plaintiffs' argument that Tesla's Autopilot was not designed
for the type of road where the crash occurred—and yet the system wasn’t
restricted from operating there.
Attorney Brett Schreiber, representing the victims, accused
Tesla of negligence for allowing Autopilot to function outside
controlled-access highways and pointed to Elon Musk’s public statements
claiming Autopilot was safer than human drivers.
Tesla responded by calling the verdict “wrong” and a setback
for automotive safety, stating: “No car in 2019, and none today, would have
prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot—it was a fiction created
by plaintiffs’ lawyers to shift blame from the admitted at-fault driver.”
The company further argued the verdict could jeopardize
ongoing efforts to develop life-saving self-driving technology. It also denied
deliberately withholding data and video evidence, claiming the omission was
unintentional.
Legal analysts believe the ruling could spark a wave of
lawsuits. Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the case, said,
“This will open the floodgates. It will embolden a lot of people to come to
court.”
The decision comes as Musk pushes forward with plans to
launch a driverless taxi service and expand Tesla’s autonomous driving
technology—despite past issues. In 2023, Tesla recalled 2.3 million vehicles
over concerns that Autopilot failed to adequately warn inattentive drivers.
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