Here's the Salary You Could Earn Working for Tesla

Technology companies have long been popular for their high salaries and competitive benefits. And companies that expect to grow quickly need to pay well in order to hire the best and the brightest, in large numbers. So it's not surprising that Tesla pays comparably well for many positions.
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But exactly how much can you make working for the EV, solar and AI giant?
Engineers are critical to Tesla's business, as they design cars, trucks and solar panels, as well as AI and robotics.
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A senior software engineer earns an average salary of $171,638 at Tesla. A software engineer can expect to earn about $133,589.
A generalist software engineer in AI inference would need to be proficient in Python and C++, as well as with a machine learning framework such as PyTorch. This position also requires experience with training and deploying neural networks for AI and experience with CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). The compensation for this job, according to Tesla, is $118,000 to $390,000 plus cash and stock awards and benefits.
A machine learning engineer working on self-driving vehicles can expect to earn between $140,000 and $420,000 per year, plus stock and cash awards and benefits, according to Tesla.
To qualify for this position, you'll need Python experience, a major deep learning framework and best practices in software engineering, along with experience deploying machine learning models for self-driving, robotics or natural language processing.
An intern who works as a system software engineer can expect to earn $36.05 to $56.13 per hour plus benefits. These interns work 40 hours per week, onsite, for a minimum of 12 weeks.
This type of internship is for students who are currently enrolled in an academic program, pursuing a Computer Engineering or Computer Science degree and have experience with C/C++ and Linux.
Tesla requires skilled workers in its manufacturing facilities to assemble electric vehicles, solar equipment, satellites and more.
A quality technician can expect to earn $49,000 to $67,000 per year.
These technicians perform inspections, audits and testing, analyze quality issues, implement corrective action and maintain documentation on quality and performance. Technicians are required to be proficient with quality systems and tools.
An equipment maintenance technician earns an average of $36.88 per hour.
This position requires the technical skills needed to install, repair and maintain mechanical and electrical systems, robotics and factory automation. Experience as an automotive technician or technical military experience is required.
As an innovative company with leading-edge technologies, Tesla needs sales personnel to get their products into the right hands.
Sales advisors for Tesla make between $41,000 and $62,000 per year. Those who sell more cars or who have been with the company for several years may earn more.
Candidates for a sales position are expected to have a year or more of sales or customer service experience.
General managers in sales can earn between $102,000 and $153,000 per year, plus cash and stock awards, and benefits, according to Tesla. GMs oversee sales and service operations and manage and develop sales staff.
As nice as it is to have a high salary, a fat paycheck isn't the only reason to work for a particular company. There are many other factors to be considered, as well, such as benefits, work-life balance, advancement potential and job security.
Glassdoor and Indeed allow employees to post anonymous reviews of the companies they work — or worked — for. These reviews offer a less biased view of what it's like to work at Tesla, though it must be noted that people are generally more likely to leave negative reviews than positive ones.
For example, just over half (55%) of Tesla employees on Glassdoor feel they are compensated fairly. About the same number (56%) said they would recommend working at Tesla.
The overall rating given to the company by employees was 3.5 out of 5 stars.
The sentiment was similar on Indeed. The overall rating was 3.3 out of 5 stars.
Indeed breaks down the ratings further, which showed that the company is more highly regarded for pay and benefits than anything else. Tesla was rated 3.6 out of 5 stars for pay and benefits, but 3.2 for culture, 2.9 for work-life balance, 2.8 for job security and advancement and 2.8 for management.
Working at Tesla, or any other company, is about more than just the salary, although that is a big consideration. Finding a job where you are valued, both financially and as a contributor, is the key factor.
Editor's note: Salary information was sourced from Indeed and Glassdoor unless otherwise stated and is accurate as of June 3, 2025.
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Safety Drivers, Remote Diving And Assist - The Long Tail Of Robotaxis

Remote driving room at Vay, where operators have video game consoles and multiple screens to control ... More cars on Las Vegas streets. With Tesla now planning to launch its pilot robotaxi service in Austin TX this week using safety drivers (Tesla employees in the passenger seat able to supervise and intervene) it's a good time to review the history of the safety driver and all the other technologies being used to help self-driving cars deal with the 'long tail' of problems they must solve to work on our roads. Making a car that can handle every possible road situation with perfect safety is a science fictional goal--nobody is close to knowing how to do it. As such, all robocars call on humans in one way or another, from tasks as simple as cleaning and recharging them to intervening when they make an unsafe move. I'll look at all approaches. Removing the safety driver is the 'big hard step' that changes a vehicle from a testing prototype to a real robotaxi. There are many other steps, but they are baby steps compared to the first time the vehicle goes out without a human overseeing it and able to take control. Safety Driver The very first robocars, which were pretty primitive and failed often, were set up so a human driver could sit in the driver's seat and grab the wheel or press the pedals at any time. That immediately disengaged the self-drive system and the car became manually driven. Many cars also had the 'big red button,' an emergency stop button to be used if grabbing the controls failed. It usually did a hard disconnect of all systems, but in practice most are never used. Outside of closed courses like the DARPA Grand Challenge, all robocar testing from day one has worked this way. All teams hope for the day they can remove that safety driver, as that is the whole goal. It generally works well. With properly behaving safety drivers, test robocars have very good safety records. Except for one giant black mark, when Uber ATG did not manage safety drivers well, and hired one who watched a TV show instead of doing her job, allowing the vehicle, when it failed (as prototypes are expected to do) to strike and kill a pedestrian. In the early years, cars typically had two staff in them, one behind the wheel, and the other, sometimes called the software operator, who monitored the driving soft ware to make sure it was doing the right things. Safety drivers can take the wheel at any time, and are told to do it if they feel anything odd is going on, or sometimes if a risky situation is likely. Especially in early years, if there were children on the street, you always took over. In addition, if the software detected any problems, it would alert the safety driver to take over. Teams (and governments) track interventions. The best teams take every significant intervention and create a simulation scenario to duplicate it, then test what would have happened if the human had not intervened. If the car would have done something bad, like hit something, that becomes a priority problem to fix. Indeed, interventions where it turns out the car would have done fine are often not even counted. Tesla took things to a new level when it released Autopilot and FSD. These had ordinary untrained customers act as supervisor for the vehicle. Google/Waymo had only used trained employees who took a driving safety course. When Tesla did this, there was great skepticism that relying on ordinary customers would be unsafe, but in reality, it worked out. Probably not as safe as ordinary driving, but fairly similar. (Tesla misleadingly claims it is much safer, but this is false.) Safety Driver not in Driver's Seat The normal place is behind the wheel, but some vehicles put a safety operator in another location, such as the passenger's seat. In vehicles designed with no controls (like some shuttles) the employee may have access to just an emergency stop button that commands the vehicle to stop and pull over, or slightly more involved controls. This may also include a video game controller, wheel or gamepad that can be plugged in for manual driving. This is probably not as safe as a person behind the wheel. In the passenger's seat, there is a ong history of human driving instructors training teen drivers by having their own brake pedal and the ability to grab the wheel. I remember my own driving instructor doing that. It works, though it's not clear if it has any purpose other than saying, 'nobody at the wheel.' It's more for PR than safety in vehicles that still have a wheel. Even so, some companies have done it. Russian robotaxi company Yandex used it in Austin and other cities. (Yandex is now non-Russian and called AVRide.) Cruise did their first 'driverless' test with an employee in the passenger seat. Most shuttle companies keep a worker in the shuttle who can hit the emergency stop, and pull out a game controller to drive. Remote Driving It may surprise some to learn there are remotely driven cars on the road today. German company Vay uses this to deliver cars to customers in Las Vegas. Several other companies have built different tools for remote driving. I worked (with compensation) with one such company, to produce a video about some of these approaches. Remote driving is done over public data networks, which of course face interruptions and packet loss and sometimes long latency. As such, it is typically done with a system capable of doing safe basic operations without remote input so that it will, at worst case, just come to a stop if comms get too bad. They are also usually designed to use multiple communications channels to survive problems with any one of them. Remote driving still requires paying a human, so you lose a lot of the cost advantage of a robocar over say, an Uber. However, you don't have to pay a human while the vehicle is sitting waiting. (Uber doesn't pay its drivers for that either, but it effectively builds into the fares for actual driving enough to make drivers tolerate the wait. They can also do other work or read or watch videos between rides.) As such, it can be cheaper to operate a remote driven fleet than a human driven one, and you can do WhistleCar service (car delivery) like Vay. Some companies, like Waymo, make use of low speed remote driving when they are in a situation where they want to move a stuck car or solve a problem the software can't. At these low speeds, you can't do much damage and you can stop on a dime if the connection has an issue. Some delivery robots, such as the early Kiwibot and Coco, were entirely remote driven, because at the speed of sidewalk delivery robots, that's fairy doable without safety concerns. (Indeed, many of these robots are so light that they don't hurt people even if they did hit them.) Tesla has advertised for programmers for some time to work on their remote driving and control systems for both robotaxis and the Optimus robot. Remote Supervision with Driving Remote supervision is effectively taking the safety driver and making them remote. The car mostly drives itself, but the remote supervisor is always watching (usually with an array of screens or possibly a VR headset) and 'grabs the wheel' virtually if they see the need to take over. You need to not need 'instant' takeovers that depend on sub-second reaction times (humans need about 0.7 seconds even when in the car) but is good for most problems which are apparent further in advance when you have the power of a human mind. 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There, operators are present who can help vehicles solve problems when they get confused. They usually cannot drive the vehicles directly, only give them strategic advice, like 'Turn around and take this new route' or 'Make the 2nd left' or 'Follow this set of waypoints to get around that obstacle' and most often 'Continue with your current plan, it's OK.' For remote assist to scale, you need to have many more vehicles on the road than remote assist operators, so that each vehicle on average needs active assist just a small fraction of the time. At Starship technologies, a delivery robot company, we set a goal of having 99% autonomy, meaning 100 robots for each operator. This makes the human labor cost effective. It's easier to do for delivery robots which can just stop and wait at any time. A leak from Cruise revealed robots were asking for help about every 5 minutes, which Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt felt was according to plan during their pilot stage. 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Is Cathie Wood Actually Right About Tesla Stock?

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It's not necessary to get into the weeds about how these simulations are done; suffice it to say that on the bearish side, Ark's model shows a 25% chance that Tesla's stock price will be $2,000 or less in 2029, and on the bullish side, it finds a 25% chance that it will be $3,100 or more. Roughly in the middle lies Ark's expected value of $2,600 for the shares. The modeling itself is almost certainly wrong, simply because it relies on variables that are incredibly hard to predict. To illustrate just how challenging it can be to make accurate stock forecasts using this kind of simulation, let's revisit the predictions Ark made in 2021 and 2023 for Tesla's share prices in 2025 and 2026, respectively. Tesla's current stock price in 2025 is about $320. Tesla Price Targets Ark 2021 Forecast for 2025 Ark 2022 Forecast for 2026 Bear case $1,500 $2,900 Bull case $4,000 $5,800 Expected value $3,000 $4,600 Data source: Ark Invest presentations. Tesla's stock price is currently far below even the bearish scenario Ark simulated in 2021, and it would have to increase by 806% to hit the bear case scenario for 2026 that was projected in 2022. All of which is not to criticize Ark, because modeling the long-term value of a speculative growth stock like Tesla is incredibly difficult. The point is not to take the targets too literally. But if investors can't take such price targets as gospel, is there anything to be gleaned from Ark's analysis? As a matter of fact, there is. The key points from the model that investors can take away are the following: Tesla's share price is highly sensitive to the timing and scaling of its robotaxi and Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities. The $2,600 price target for 2029 assumes that at that point, 88% of Tesla's enterprise value (market cap plus net debt) will be attributable to its robotaxi business, and just 9% to its electric vehicle (EV) sales. The message is clear: Don't buy Tesla stock unless you believe there's a good chance its robotaxi service (which may already be operating in its first market by the time you read this) won't be successful. Everything is riding on the company's robotaxi bet. Tesla's unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) system is unproven, as is its robotaxi concept. Notably, it has yet to begin volume production of its dedicated robotaxi, the Cybercab. Moreover, there are myriad regulatory hurdles and safety concerns to overcome. Simply put, Tesla's robotaxi business is risky. And if it fails, it will likely set Tesla back significantly. Buyer beware. That said, while Tesla is a speculative growth stock -- remember, buyers at this point are investing primarily for its robotaxi business, not its electric vehicle business -- it's a growth stock with a difference. Tesla continues to dominate the EV market, and rivals such as Ford Motor Company and General Motors, have withdrawn from the robotaxi race. The auto industry as a whole has invested billions into the various efforts to develop a fully autonomous vehicle, and Tesla has not been alone in overpromising and underdelivering on it. Yet Tesla is launching its robotaxi service, and it has the vehicles, the data hoard, and the cash reserves to make it work. It's also ideally placed to start producing lower-cost EVs (which can be used as robotaxis controlled by unsupervised FSD systems), and the company says it's set to begin volume production of the Cybercab in 2026. Ark Invest is correct that the robotaxi business will be the key to Tesla's longer-term valuation and also the future of the auto industry. If -- and it's a big if -- Tesla can get the technology right, then there's significant upside for the stock, because all the other operational ingredients are in place for the company to make it work. That's where Wood and Ark might be right after all. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $373,066!* Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $38,158!* Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $664,089!* Right now, we're issuing 'Double Down' alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join , and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.*Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is Cathie Wood Actually Right About Tesla Stock? was originally published by The Motley Fool

USA Today

43 minutes ago

• USA Today

Texas enacts robotaxi rules on the eve of Tesla's Austin rollout

AUSTIN - Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has signed legislation requiring a permit to operate self-driving vehicles just before Tesla's planned launch of a robotaxi trial on Sunday, June 22 in Austin, according to the governor's website. The law does not take effect until Sept. 1, but the governor's approval of it on Friday sends a strong signal that state officials from both parties want the driverless-vehicle industry to proceed cautiously. A group of Democratic state lawmakers earlier this week asked Tesla to delay its planned robotaxi trial because of the legislation. Neither Tesla nor the governor's office immediately responded to requests for comment. The law marks a reversal from the state's previous anti-regulation stance on autonomous vehicles. A 2017 Texas law specifically prohibited cities from regulating self-driving cars. In recent days, Tesla has sent invites to a select group of Tesla online influencers for a small and carefully monitored robotaxi trial, which the company has said would include 10 or 20 Model Y vehicles operated in a limited zone of Austin. The governor's signature on the law puts the automaker in the position of choosing whether to proceed with a rollout it might have to terminate before Sept. 1. The law requires autonomous-vehicle operators to get approval from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles before operating on public streets without a human driver. It also gives state authorities the power to revoke permits if they deem a driverless vehicle "endangers the public" and requires firms to provide information on how police and first responders can deal with their driverless vehicles in emergency situations. Musk pledges safe robotaxi rollout The planned Tesla robotaxi launch, which the company warned might be delayed, comes after more than a decade of CEO Elon Musk's unfulfilled promises to deliver self-driving Teslas. Most of Tesla's sky-high stock value now rests on its ability to deliver robotaxis and humanoid robots, according to many industry analysts. Tesla is by far the world's most valuable automaker. Musk has said Tesla would be "super paranoid" about safety for the Austin rollout. The company planned to operate only in areas it considered the safest and to have "safety monitors" riding in the front passenger seat. It is not clear how much control the monitors would have over the vehicles in an emergency situation. The service in Austin will have other restrictions as well. Tesla plans to avoid bad weather, difficult intersections, and will not carry anyone below the age of 18. Musk has said he is ready to delay the start for safety reasons, if needed. The planned launch has generated buzz among Tesla fans. "Wow. We are going to ride in driverless Teslas in just a few days. On public roads," posted Omar Qazi, an user with 635,200 followers who writes often about Tesla using the handle @WholeMarsBlog and received an invite. Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been risky and expensive. GM's Cruise was shut down after a fatal accident and regulators are closely watching Tesla and its rivals, Alphabet's Waymo, which runs a paid robotaxi service in several U.S. cities, and Amazon's Zoox. Tesla is also bucking the young industry's standard practice of relying on multiple technologies to read the road, using only cameras. That, says Musk, will be safe and much less expensive than lidar and radar systems added by rivals.