A judge ruled Tesla still has to pay $243 million for a fatal crash involving Autopilot

Tesla is still on the hook for $243 million after a US judge rejected the EV maker's bid to overturn a jury verdict from last year. On Friday, US District Judge Beth Bloom upheld the jury's decision to hold Tesla partially responsible for a deadly crash that happened in 2019 and involved the self-driving Autopilot feature.

The judge added that there was enough evidence to support the jury's verdict, which was delivered in August 2025 and ordered Tesla to pay millions in compensatory and punitive damages to the two victims in the case. Judge Bloom added that Tesla didn't present any new arguments to dispute the decision.

While the case has been moving along recently, the incident dates back to several years ago when the driver of a Model S, George McGee, was using Tesla's Autopilot feature while bending down to retrieve a ...