Tesla Put Cybercabs on Public Roads Without Steering Wheels. NHTSA Opened an Investigation the Same Morning.

Tesla deployed its first production Cybercabs — vehicles built without steering wheels or pedals — on public streets in Austin, Texas. Hours later on Friday morning, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the deployment and into Tesla's self-certification that the vehicles comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

"NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles," said administrator Jonathan Morrison. "But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed."

Federal rules currently require manual controls such as a brake pedal, though the Department of Transportation has proposed removing that requirement for autonomous vehicles. The nearest precedent is NHTSA's 2022–23 inquiry into Zoox's robotaxi, which also lacked conventional controls; Zoox received final approval for a temporary exemption in July 2026.

Separately, Tesla is asking members of the public whether they would buy Cybercabs and run them as fleets — a question about who owns the vehicles being investigated.

Crusoe at $30 billion

Crusoe, the data-centre developer that supplies AI infrastructure and GPU capacity, has raised $3 billion at a $30 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. Atreides Management and Valor Equity Partners led, with Mubadala Capital participating.

The company was valued at $10 billion in an October 2025 Series E of $1.38 billion — a tripling in under a year. It started in 2018 as a crypto mining operation, now counts Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle among its customers, and recently signed a $13 billion, five-year cloud contract with Jane Street.

Oura files

Oura, the smart-ring company, has filed to go public.

Advertising IDs, switched off

The US Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Special Operations Command have disabled advertising tracking and advertising IDs on government-issued iPhones, Android devices and Windows computers, with the Air Force implementing the change in July 2026.

The change follows warnings from Senator Ron Wyden that foreign adversaries have targeted US troops in the Middle East using commercially available location data harvested from mobile apps and sold by data brokers. Turning off the advertising ID makes a device harder to single out, because its location data no longer carries a stable identifier.

Wyden's remaining concern is the one an IT policy cannot reach: personal phones carried onto bases by troops and contractors.

Sources: TechCrunch — NHTSA investigation · TechCrunch — Crusoe · TechCrunch — Oura · TechCrunch — military ad tracking