Elon Musk’s Company Fined $243M After Autopilot Horror K!lls Stargazing Couple in Monroe County
Billionaire tech boss Elon Musk is facing serious backlash after a Florida jury slammed Tesla with a $243 million fine over a deadly Autopilot crash that tragically ended the lives of a young couple.
The heart-wrenching incident happened in Monroe County back in 2019, when Naibel Benavides was out stargazing with her boyfriend Dillon Angulo. A Tesla Model S, allegedly on Autopilot, struck her so violently that her body flew 75 feet through the air and landed in a wooded area, where it was later discovered. Her boyfriend survived, but with brutal injuries.
The driver, George McGee, confessed he was distracted by his phone, but the court still found Tesla partially responsible. Why? Because Tesla’s Autopilot was being used on a non-highway road something the system wasn’t even designed for. Still, the car didn’t restrict it.
Attorney Brett Schreiber, speaking for the victims’ families, didn’t hold back. He accused Tesla of negligence, claiming they knew the system could fail but still let it run wild. He even pointed fingers at Musk himself, saying Elon hyped Autopilot as being “safer than humans”, misleading the public.
Tesla fired back hard, calling the verdict “wrong” and warning it could hurt progress in self-driving technology. They insisted the crash wasn’t Autopilot’s fault and claimed any missing data or video was “accidentally” left out, not hidden on purpose.
Now, Musk is planning to appeal, but this case has already sparked wildfire reactions. Legal experts are predicting a wave of lawsuits coming for Tesla. One attorney said: “This ruling opened the floodgates. People will rush to court now.”
This comes while Musk is hyping the future of driverless robotaxis and expanding Tesla’s full self-driving rollout even after they had to recall over 2 million vehicles in 2023 due to Autopilot warnings not working properly.
