Earlier this week, a Tesla Model 3 driver in Katy, Texas, a Houston suburb, left the roadway at a “high rate of speed” and slammed into a brick home, killing a 76-year-old woman. The driver, Michael Butler, cooperated with investigators, showed no signs of intoxication, and claimed the car’s automated driving feature was engaged at the time.
That claim was all the media needed.
The New York Times ran with the headline “Tesla Driver Using Autopilot Crashes Into Home, Killing a Woman, Officials Say.” The Associated Press reported that “the top U.S. auto regulator opened an investigation Monday after a Tesla using an automated driving feature slammed into a Texas home at high speed and killed a 76-year-old woman standing inside.”
Notice the framing. The driver’s word was treated as fact. Tesla’s culpability was treated as settled. Did it occur to a single reporter that a driver facing potential liability for killing someone might have an incentive to point the finger at the car instead of himself?
I’ve owned a Tesla for over a year now, and roughly 95% of my driving happens with Full Self-Driving (Supervised) engaged. Whether it’s quick runs to the store or long road trips to Boston, I love using it. It’s a remarkable piece of technology, and it works extremely well. So when this story broke, I was skeptical right away, and so were plenty of other Tesla owners on social media. Anyone with real experience behind the wheel of a self-driving Tesla could tell almost instantly that this had the fingerprints of driver error, not a software failure.
Sure enough, Tesla and Elon Musk have since confirmed exactly that. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI, revealed that the company’s data shows the driver manually overrode the self-driving system by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%. The car reached 73 miles per hour, and according to Elluswamy, the accelerator was still pressed “even after the crash.”
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
My experience with FSD has shown me that FSD always errs on the side of safety. Just today, it waited much longer to take a left turn on a busy main road than I would have. Is it perfect? No. But is it a safer driver than a human? You bet. A few weeks ago, it broke fast for a child who was running into the road in the opposite lane before I’d even seen him.
ICYMI: Stick a Fork in James Talarico. He’s Done.
This is not the first time the media has rushed to hang a crash on Tesla’s self-driving technology, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
the NYT reporter who wrote this obviously false story is refusing to update it or append any correction, in response to multiple emails. https://t.co/aAOtU064tT pic.twitter.com/Pk7TV8aEfh
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) June 22, 2026
The data tells a story the press doesn’t want to print. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have both ranked Tesla models among the safest cars on the road. Even left-wing influencer Brian Krassenstein bought a Cybertruck specifically because of its safety record.
None of this fits the narrative the media wants. Musk is a political target, and Tesla is the easiest way to come after him without saying his name. So every crash becomes an opportunity, every unverified driver claim becomes a headline, and every correction gets buried below the fold, if it runs at all.
The press had a chance to wait for the facts before running the story. They chose the smear instead.
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