Sources: the US DOJ launched a criminal probe into Tesla in 2021 that is still underway, following over a dozen crashes, some fatal, with Autopilot activated
Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is under criminal investigation in the United States over claims that the company's electric vehicles can drive themselves …
Context & Ripple Effects
The criminal probe reported here is not an isolated action but the longest-running thread in a multi-agency tangle around Tesla's self-driving claims. The DOJ first examined Tesla criminally back in 2018 over public statements by the company and Elon Musk, and the SEC later turned to Musk's own role in shaping the Autopilot messaging. By 2024, prosecutors were weighing whether the claims amounted to securities or wire fraud aimed at both investors and consumers.
First-order effects
- Tesla now faces parallel criminal exposure on two fronts — the 2021 Autopilot-crash probe still underway and the 2024 fraud review — while its stock sits at highs built substantially on investor belief in the same self-driving taxi prospects under scrutiny.
- Elon Musk is personally implicated through his public statements, the same conduct that drew the 2018 criminal inquiry and the SEC's attention to his role in the claims.
Second-order effects
- NHTSA's escalating fleet-wide probes — 2.4M FSD vehicles after low-visibility crashes in 2024, then 2.88M vehicles over traffic-safety violations in October 2025 — give federal prosecutors a widening evidentiary base drawn from Tesla's own customer fleet.
- Tesla's Austin robotaxi rollout, roughly 30 cars with safety drivers against Waymo's ~200 running unmonitored, leaves little operational margin to absorb regulatory setbacks that competitors are not exposed to.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, criminal liability for overstating driver-assistance capability would become a live risk for every automaker marketing partial autonomy, pushing the industry toward conservative claim language and third-party verification rather than CEO-led promises.
- Sustained multi-agency pressure points toward formalized federal oversight of autonomy claims — where safety regulators supply crash data and prosecutors treat marketing language as a securities and consumer-protection matter.
The trend: US regulators and prosecutors are converging on Tesla's self-driving claims from civil, safety, and now criminal angles, turning marketing language about autonomy into a legal liability category.