A Texas woman is suing Tesla, alleging that the company has been "negligent" in keeping Elon Musk as its CEO, after her Autopilot, attempted to drive straight over the edge of a Houston overpass and crashed into a concrete barrier.
The lawsuit, filed in Harris County, seeks more than $1 million in damages for injuries sustained in the crash.
According to the complaint, Justine Saint Amour was driving her recently purchased Cybertruck on Interstate 69 in August last year, when the vehicle failed to follow a right‑hand curve on a Y‑shaped overpass. Amour attempted to disable the self‑driving mode, but the truck continued toward a concrete barrier and collided with it.
The suit claims the vehicle’s system malfunctioned and that Tesla misrepresented the safety and capabilities of its driver‑assistance technology.
The lawsuit accuses Tesla of overstating the reliability of its Autopilot features and describes Musk’s involvement in the system’s design as “reckless and dangerous.”
It goes on to say Tesla was negligent in “allowing Elon Musk to override the concerns of engineers at Tesla”.
It alleges Musk rejected engineers’ recommendations to include additional safety redundancies, such as LiDAR sensors used by competing automakers, and instead relied on “cheap video cameras”.
Furthermore, it characterizes Musk as “an aggressive and irresponsible salesman, who has a long history of making dangerous design choices, and over-promising the features of his products.”
The complaint also claims the Cybertruck lacked an adequate backup braking system and that Tesla failed to provide sufficient warnings or instructions to prevent accidents.
The legal action is the latest in a series of lawsuits targeting Tesla over alleged safety issues.
Tesla has faced increasing scrutiny from federal regulators over its Full Self‑Driving (FSD) and Autopilot systems, including concerns raised by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
This lawsuit now raises concerns that Tesla is allegedly using nondisclosure agreements that could hinder safety investigations by silencing "drivers about FSD failures”.
Amour’s attorney, Bob Hilliard, told the Houston Chronicle that the crash was “not an accident,” but rather “a foreseeable result of choices Tesla made knowingly, repeatedly, and without regard for the people on the road.”
The case adds to the mounting legal and regulatory pressure facing Tesla as questions continue to grow about the safety of its autonomous‑driving technology and the company’s handling of consumer complaints.
In August 2025, a Miami federal jury found Tesla liable for a 2019 crash, in which a 22-year-old woman was killed, and her boyfriend was injured in a Tesla Model S with Autopilot engaged. The jury assigned a third of the blame to the automaker and awarded $43m in compensation, as well as an additional $200m in punitive damages. It was the first major legal victory against Tesla in an Autopilot-related wrongful death case.
Tesla had reportedly rejected a $60m settlement offer before the trial.
In 2025, the family of a Houston man sued the company after he died when his Cybertruck caught fire following a crash into a ditch. Michael Sheehan, 47, "burned to death at 5,000°F – a fire so hot his bones experienced thermal fracture," according to the lawsuit.
Once power was lost, it was impossible for Sheehan to open the Cybertruck’s electrically operated doors normally, the complaint said. Meanwhile, the external door handles also failed to work, and the emergency manual door release handles are “unreasonably difficult to locate in an emergency,” the filing claimed.
The Independent has contacted Tesla for comment.
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