For a decade, Dr. Bronners has been a certified B Corporation, a designation issued by the nonprofit B Lab that confirms a company has met certain environmental, social, and governance standards. But now the organic soap company is dropping its B Corp certification without plans to renew. Dr. Bronner’s says B Lab’s standards are weak, and that some multinational corporations are now using its sealan encircled B, which became a symbol that businesses can be a force for goodas a form of greenwashing.
Dr. Bronner’s mainly takes issue with B Lab’s increasing certifications of multinational corporations such as Unilever Australia, Nespresso, and Nestlé Health Scienceand the fact that these businesses are not required to provide third-party certifications on the humans rights or environmental impacts of their supply chains. Instead, a business can still get a B Corp certification by scoring high in other assessment areas, such as if it monitors waste or has a certain percentage of management from underrepresented populations.
To Dr. Bronner’s, this means B Lab is failing to ensure that its certification “wont be used to mislead consumers, David and Michael Bronner, the company’s CEO and president, respectively, said in a joint statement. “Sharing the same logo and messaging regarding being of benefit to the world with large multinational CPG companies with a history of serious ecological and labor issues, and no comprehensive or credible eco-social certification of supply chains, is unacceptable to us.
A B Lab spokesperson says the nonprofit remains “deeply committed” to its mission, and that “catalyzing business as a force for good is a journey rather than a destination.” It has been working with its member businesses, advocacy groups, and independent experts to strengthen its standards, and in early 2025 will publish new requirements. These updated standards, the spokesperson says, “address todays most urgent social and environmental challenges, providing clear, impactful requirements that companies must meet in order to deliver leadership and systemic change.”
Dr. Bronner’s first became a certified B Corp in 2015, the same year it became a benefit corporationa separate, unrelated legal designation that allows companies to pursue social good instead of simply profit. In the years since, its become one of the top-scoring B Corps. The company currently has an overall score of 206.7 (reportedly, the highest score ever awarded by the nonprofit), and the B Corp website notes that the median score for ordinary businesses is 50.9. The minimum score to become a certified B Corp is 80 points over five areas: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers.
B Corp’s logo has graced thousands of brands, including notably progressive ones including Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s. Dr. Bronners says its B Corp fee is paid through September 2025, but that the company won’t renew after that point. It’s also begun removing the B Corp logo from branding and marketing materials.
For the past few years, Dr. Bronners has been pushing B Lab to improve its standardsespecially after larger companies joined the B Corp community. In 2022, the Nestlé-owned coffee company Nespresso announced that it received B Corp certification, setting off a wave of backlash from other B Corps. Just two months after that announcement, 30 certified B Corpsincluding Dr. Bronnerssigned an open letter to B Lab, protesting the certification, pointing to the history of child labor and wage theft on farms that grew Nespressos beans.
B Labs standards have been questioned before, especially as the number of certification submissions has surged. And B Lab has taken action against some companies for behaviors that go against its ethos. In 2022, Scottish brewery BrewDog announced it was no longer a certified B Corpthough it said its status wasnt revoked, just that it withdrew after B Lab requested additional measures that the Scottish company couldn’t fulfill. (BrewDog received scrutiny after its certification from former employees who said the companys culture compromised their health and safety.) In 2024, B Lab stripped Havas, a French public relations company, of its certification because of the agencys relationship with Shell.
But its mostly B Labs certification of multinational companies that has received the most criticism, especially from its own B Corp community. Its these large companies that are using their B Corp certification as a marketing ploy, Dr. Bronners says in its statement. Dr. Bronners has been pushing B Lab to require companies, especially those multinational corporations, to certify all major supply chains.
The raw agricultural materials a company useswhether meat, milk, eggs, palm oil, cocoa, coffee, cotton, and any othersare often produced in terrible ways in terms of social and environmental impact, the Bronners said. Requiring third party eco-social certification for major multinational supply chains would, they added, protect against the B Corp certification being misused by companies to hide these unsustainable and unjust corporate practices.
They acknowledged that some certified B Corps do already practice this, including Patagonia, another prominent example of a purpose-driven business. But, they said, they are unfortunately a minority and this is not required by B Lab, most glaringly in the case of large multinational companies and their enormous supply chains.
A viral TikTok video showing an empty book signing for an elderly author tugged at millions of heartsuntil it was exposed as a marketing stunt.
The book in question, Just Cuz, was reportedly written by Barbara Miller as a tribute to her late husband, Marv. She wrote it as a way to deal with her grief, the video’s voiceover explained. Posted last month, the video shows an empty bookstore with “Aunt Barb” setting up her books on a table to sign for customers who were nowhere in sight, followed by a dejected but hopeful “Aunt Barb”and it quickly racked up more than 33 million views, sparking an outpouring of support. Hundreds of commenters pledged to buy the book and attend her next signing.
@justcuzthebook Nobody came to my aunts book signing, but she still had a smile JUST CUZ #justcuz #books #childrensbooks #fyp #justcuzthebook #kids original sound – Just Cuz
But TikTok creator Sam Cahn was the first to burst Aunt Barbs bubble. The bad news is that this was fake, he said in his own video. The good news is the book is selling.
@samcahntent aunt barbs just cuz book signing was a marketing move (it worked) #auntbarb #justcuz original sound – IG/YT: samcahntent
Cahn became suspicious when he noticed how new Millers social media presence was and that there was no announcement of a book signing across any of her pages. After calling the bookstore, he found out that someone had paid $150 to rent the space on a Monday, when the store was closed, and staged the entire scene. This isnt an attack on Barb, he clarified. I think shes sweet. I love the success.
He did, however, think it was worth calling out the 100% staged video from justcuzthebook. “I just want you to know that this didn’t happen: Nobody didn’t show up to a book signing.”
The emotional manipulation tactic is, unfortunately, tried and true. “‘My parent did this thing but nobody came to see’ is always a marketing gimmick . . . but it gets me every time, one user commented underneath Cahn’s video. Omg I cried my eyes out on the original post, another wrote.
On social media, the sob story has become a go-to strategy for struggling artists chasing virality. Pity appears to be a powerful currency, one that can turn engagement into attention and attention into sales. Its now not uncommon to see people sharing stories of professional failure (like Aunt Barb), seemingly in the hopes of gaining support, promotion, and even purchases from total strangers online. And often, it works.
This kind of emotional marketing taps into our most basic instincts: If we feel bad enough for someone, were more likely to hit buy (regardless of whether the work in question is even good). Its a crass but effective tool, one that plays on our emotions for clicks. That turn into bucks.
So, okay, maybe sometimes it pays to engage in a bit of emotional manipulation . . . just cuz. But let’s keep it to a minimum and maybe not use it with matters of great consequence, k?
In an ad that aired in select markets during Sundays Super Bowl, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, encouraged viewers to visit his website, Yeezy.com. The site originally listed a variety of merchandise, but right after the ad aired, quickly limited the selection to a single $20 white T-shirt emblazoned with a large black swastika. The site listed the product under the name HH-01, which, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is code for Heil Hitler.
Yes site hosted the shirt, but it was sold through the ecommerce platform Shopify. The shirt remained live until Shopify removed the listing this morning, and now searching Yeezy.com leads to an error page.
While the T-shirt is no longer available through Shopify, Fast Company found that one reseller, as of this morning, had already listed the shirt for sale on eBay at a huge markup of more than $600. This suggests there is a secondary market for the shirts following a day of sales on the original site.
[Screenshot: eBay]
Following an inquiry from Fast Company, eBay removed the listing. But this afternoon, another reseller posted a listing for the shirt that blurred out the swastika symbol, possibly as a workaround to eBay’s offensive items policy. eBay has since taken down this posting, as well.
The far-right has used similar codes and hate symbols during President Trump’s first term, and that practice is on the rise again. The dog whistles in conservative politics have become bullhorns in the Trump era, Robert Rowland, professor of communications at the University of Kansas, who studies Trumps rhetoric, told Fast Company in 2021.
The incident calls into question how retailers should walk the line between upholding free speech and standing against hateful rhetoricespecially in an era when many major brands are walking back their commitments to DEI.
Shopify and eBay respond to Ye’s swastika shirt
In a statement to Fast Company on the takedown of the T-shirt listing, an eBay spokesperson said, eBay has zero-tolerance for items that promote anti-Semitism or hate of any kind. eBays Offensive Items policy prohibits the listing of anti-Semitic items, including any items from after 1933 that include a swastika. The shirts in question are covered by this policy and eBay is actively blocking or removing any listings for them. Sellers who violate eBay policies may face sanctions up to, and including, a permanent suspension.
In reference to the removal of the Yeezy website, a Shopify spokesperson stated, All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform. This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms, so we removed them from Shopify.
Apparently, Shopify was aware of the T-shirt listing by Monday afternoon at the latest, but discouraged its support staff from commenting if any merchant clients reached out about the item, according to a report from The Logic.
This isnt the first time that Shopify has faced criticism for accommodating items that could constitute hate speech. Back in June 2024, Shopify appeared to have updated its Acceptable Use Policy to remove a previous ban of hateful content, replacing it with a condition that sellers cannot call for, or threaten, violence against specific people or groups. Then, in November, Shopify drew backlash for hosting a store that posted merch denying the Holocaust and parodying the likeness of Anne Frank.
Shopify did not respond to Fast Companys request for clarification on the distinction between Yes swastika T-shirt and the aforementioned listings, which appear to still be live at the time of this writing.
What this means for brands going forward
The HH-01 T-shirt came after Ye published a series of antisemitic tweets to his personal X account, including one claiming, Im going to normalize talking about Hitler, which ultimately led to the shutdown of the account.
Ye has a storied history of fallouts with business partners due to rampant instances of hate speech. Back in 2022, longtime collaborator Adidas cut ties with the artist after he published a series of antisemitic comments. Other brands, including the talent agency CAA and the tech company Kano, also ended their partnerships with Ye.
It’s possible that Ye expected his Shopify site to go down, and even with the shutdown of the Yeezy domain, he got what he wanted: an attention-grabbing stunt, and shirts featuring hate symbols on secondary markets, indicating that the political climate is creating a permission structure for hate groups to wear what were formerly dog whistles on their sleeve.
While Yes clash with Shopify is nothing new, it demonstrates a need for increased vigilance from companies like Shopify and eBay to screen their listings and act quickly to remove hateful products. Especially now, amid a complete crackdown on DEI policies from the federal level, the onus lies on brands to take responsibility for harmful imagery.
The “American woman in Pakistan” now has a crypto coin.
If you dont know who that is, American Onijah Andrew Robinson recently went viral after claiming she flew to Pakistan to marry a 19-year-old she met online, only to be rejected. Instead of returning home, she has become somewhat of a celebrity in Pakistan, holding high-profile press conferences in Karachi where she demands money and declares her plans to rebuild the country. Thanks to TikTok, she has since gone international as that “American woman in Pakistan.”
In an interview with the City 21 news channel, Robinson announced her entry into the crypto market last week. I would like to say I am launching a bitcoin under Onijah, but it would run under Nidal Ahmed, she stated in a viral clip (Nidal Ahmed Memon is the name of her 19-year-old former fiance).
Memon, for those keeping track, is the name of the man she apparently traveled to Karachi to meet and marry in October last year. At the time of the coin launch, Robinson had overstayed her visa in Pakistan by at least two months, remaining in the country despite her permit expiring.
According to Bilal Hassan, a Pakistani TikToker who has been translating the saga into English for audiences around the world, Robinson allegedly catfished Memon during their online interactions, using a filter that made her appear as a blonde white woman. This revelation reportedly alarmed Memons mother, who locked Robinson out of their home and disappeared with the entire family. Nobody knows where they went, Hassan claims.
A man claiming to be Robinsons son told a local news outlet that she has a history of mental illness and local news reports say she was admitted to a Pakistani hospital in February, where she was seen by psychiatrists.
However, in recent weeks Robinson became a minor hit in Pakistani media. In one press conference, Robinson announced a plan to reconstruct this whole country. In order to do that, she said she needed $100,000 in donations. In another press conference, she asked for a weekly payment of at least $2,000. I want $20,000 up front, $5,000-$10,000 to stay here every week, she said, according to videos circulating on TikTok. And I want those demands from the government right away.
Now, some four months later, local media reports she has finally left Pakistan.
The majority of Google Maps users across the globe today will notice a significant change on the platform if they zoom into the body of water south of the United States and east of Mexico. Thats because Google has updated the name of that basin from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Heres what you need to know about the name change, including why it was made, who will see it, and if the world’s other major digital maps providerApplewill follow suit.
Why did Google rename the Gulf of Mexico?
The fact that Google has renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America is no surprise. As a matter of fact, back in January, Google announced it would be making the name changea move it was widely ridiculed for on social media.
So why is Google making the change? Officially, its because the Gulf of Mexico has been renamed the Gulf of America in the United States Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) register. In a blog post announcing the name change, Google said the name change is consistent with our longstanding practices of adopting the names used in the GNIS.
But many have claimed that the real reason for the name change is to appease President Trump, which the search giantlike most other American tech companieshas been trying to keep happy since his return to power last month.
In January, President Trump issued an executive order that mandated the oceanic basins name be officially changed.
Can Trump and Google really do this?
As Fast Company previously reported, the president of the United States has the power to rename geographic locals to whatever they wishwithin limitations. While presidents can mandate name changes, they can only do so on the national level. Other countries are under no obligation to recognize any such changesand as far as Im aware, none have yet embraced the new Gulf of America moniker.
As a private company, Google doesnt have to follow any naming changesbut not doing so would risk the wrath of the president.
Who sees Gulf of America in Google Maps now?
Not everyone, but a majority of the world. In a blog post announcing the name change, Google says the specific label you’ll see on the gulf depends on where you are located in the world. Based on your location, youll see the gulf labeled in one of three ways in Google Maps:
Users in the United States: will see the basin labeled as the Gulf of America only.
Users in Mexico: will see the basin labeled as the Gulf of Mexico only.
Users outside of America and Mexico: will see the basin labeled as Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).
As Google explains, The names you see in the Maps app are based on your country location, which is determined by information from your phones operating system (e.g., iOS and Android), including your SIM, network, and locale.
It says users of Google Maps on the web will see the name based on the region set in their accounts search settings, or based on their devices location.
Will Apple Maps rename the Gulf of Mexico?
While Google Maps is the largest digital mapping provider in the world, it has a strong competitor in Apple Maps.
As of the time of this writing, the gulf basin is still labeled as the Gulf of Mexico in the Apple Maps app.
Will that change? Thats yet to be seen, but if Apple designates geographic landmarks based on their names in the GNIS register, as Google does, then it is likely we can expect to see the Gulf of America name change show up in the iPhone makers maps, too.
Fast Company has reached out to Apple to ask if it will be making the name change. We will update this post with the company’s reply.
Hawaiis Supreme Court ruled Monday that insurance companies cant bring their own legal actions against those blamed for Mauis catastrophic 2023 wildfire, allowing a $4 billion settlement that was on the verge of collapse to proceed.
Other steps remain in finalizing the deal between thousands of people who lodged lawsuits and various defendants, including Hawaiian Electric Company.
The massive inferno that was the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century decimated the historic town of Lahaina, killing more than 100 people, destroying thousands of properties and causing an estimated $5.5 billion in damage. Soon afterward, attorneys began lodging hundreds of lawsuits.
A settlement was announced last summer, but insurance companies held out, insisting that they should have the right to go after the defendants separately to recoup money paid out to policyholders.
Mondays ruling resolves a key roadblock to finalizing the deal and sends the case back to a Maui judge to determine next steps.
Insurance companies that want to recoup billions paid to policyholders by pursuing legal action against the defendants said in a statement they’re disappointed, but didn’t say whether they’ll seek review at the U.S. Supreme Court.
A key question that was before Hawaii Supreme Court was whether state laws controlling health care insurance reimbursement also apply to casualty and property insurance in limiting companies ability to pursue independent legal action against those held liable. The justices answered yes.
Plaintiff lawyers were worried allowing insurers to pursue reimbursement separately would be a deal-breaker, drain what is available to pay fire victims and lead to prolonged litigation.
Gerald Singleton, one of the many attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said they’re still trying to make sense of the ruling but are pleased with it. Now the settlement can take the next step forward,” he said.
A few days before the one-year anniversary of the Aug. 8, 2023, fire, Gov. Josh Green announced that seven defendants accused of causing the tragedy had agreed to pay $4 billion to resolve claims by thousands of people. They include the main defendant, Hawaiian Electric, as well as the state of Hawaii, Maui County and Kamehameha Schools, the largest private landowner in Hawaii.
Attorneys representing the individual plaintiffs agreed to the deal amid fears that main defendant Hawaiian Electric, the power company blamed for sparking the blaze, could be on the brink of bankruptcy.
Victims attorneys acknowledged that $4 billion wasnt enough to make up for what was lost but said the deal was worth accepting, given Hawaiian Electrics limited assets.
They need every penny to restitch the fabric to bring the community back together, attorney Jesse Creed told the justices during a hearing before the state Supreme Court last week.
Creed said he could relate to the losses the victims face because his own home, childrens schools and place of worship just burned in the Palisades fire, one of the wildfires that brought widespread destruction around Los Angeles last month.
Todays decision will help our people heal much sooner, as we continue to rebuild and recover, the governor said in a text message to the AP. Green had previously denounced as unfair insurance companies’ moves to recoup money they’ve paid to policyholders in a legal process that’s called subrogation.”
Subrogation is one way companies recover the amount of claims paid to policyholders.
Insurance companies say subrogation is a way to offset costs associated with a catastrophic event so premiums wont have to go up. The process isnt for natural disasters such as hurricanes, but for when there is someone at fault.
So far they have paid more than $2.3 billion to people and businesses affected by the Maui tragedy and expect to pay $1 billion more.
Subrogation is vital to a healthy and stable insurance market, and allows insurers to hold at-fault parties legally and financially accountable,” the insurance companies said in their statement reacting to the ruling: “Preserving the rights of insurers to utilize subrogation is of importance to the insurance industry, and is ultimately beneficial to all policyholders and residents statewide.
Jacob Lowenthal, another attorney representing the individual plaintiffs, said the ruling doesn’t totally prevent insurance companies from getting reimbursed. Instead of going after the defendants, insurers will have to prove to a judge that they deserve to be reimbursed because a policyholder received money from the settlement that was more than their claim.
Now that the ruling answered the subrogation question, work can focus on the administrative claims process to determine awards based on facts of each case, he said.
The Hawaii Supreme Courts ruling was the correct outcome, Lowenthal said. The resolution of this critical issue allows the global settlement to now move forward, putting money into the hands of the Maui fire victims sooner than later.
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, Associated Press
Elon Musk has long railed against the U.S. government, saying a crushing number of federal investigations and safety programs have stymied Tesla, his electric car company, and its efforts to create fleets of robotaxis and other self-driving automobiles.Now, Musk’s close relationship with President Donald Trump means many of those federal headaches could vanish within weeks or months.On the potential chopping block: crash investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles; a Justice Department criminal probe examining whether Musk and Tesla have overstated their cars’ self-driving capabilities; and a government mandate to report crash data on vehicles using technology like Tesla’s Autopilot.The consequences of such actions could prove dire, say safety advocates who credit the federal investigations and recalls with saving lives.“Musk wants to run the Department of Transportation,” said Missy Cummings, a former senior safety adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “I’ve lost count of the number of investigations that are underway with Tesla. They will all be gone.”Within days of Trump taking office, the White House and Musk began waging an unbridled war against the federal government freezing spending and programs while sacking a host of career employees, including prosecutors and government watchdogs typically shielded from such brazen dismissals without cause.The actions have sparked outcries from legal scholars who say the Trump administration’s actions are without modern-day precedent and are already upending the balance of power in Washington.The Trump administration has not yet declared any actions that could benefit Tesla or Musk’s other companies. However, snuffing out federal investigations or jettisoning safety initiatives would be an easier task than their assault on regulators and the bureaucracy.Investigations into companies like Tesla can be shut down overnight by the new leaders of agencies. And safety programs created through an agency order or initiative not by laws passed by Congress or adopted through a formal regulatory process can also be quickly dissolved by new leaders. Unlike many of the dismantling efforts that Trump and Musk have launched in recent weeks, stalling or killing such probes and programs would not be subject to legal challenges.As such, the temporal and fragile nature of the federal probes and safety programs make them easy targets for those seeking to weaken government oversight and upend long-established norms.“Trump’s election, and the bromance between Trump and Musk, will essentially lead to the defanging of a regulatory environment that’s been stifling Tesla,” said Daniel Ives, a veteran Wall Street technology and automobile industry analyst.
Musk’s empire
Among Musk’s businesses, the federal government’s power over Tesla to investigate, order recalls, and mandate crash data reporting is perhaps the most wide-ranging. However, the ways the Trump administration could quickly ease up on Tesla also apply in some measure to other companies in Musk’s sprawling business empire.A host of Musk’s other businesses such as his aerospace company SpaceX and his social media company X are subjects of federal investigations.Musk’s businesses are also intertwined with the federal government, pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars each year in contracts. SpaceX, for example, has secured nearly $20 billion in federal funds since 2008 to ferry astronauts and satellites into space. Tesla, meanwhile, has received $41.9 million from the U.S. government, including payment for vehicles provided to some U.S. embassies.Musk, Tesla’s billionaire CEO, has found himself in his newly influential position by enthusiastically backing Trump’s third bid for the White House. He was the largest donor to the campaign, plunging more than $270 million of his vast fortune into Trump’s political apparatus, most of it during the final months of the heated presidential race.Those donations and his efforts during the campaign including the transformation of his social media platform X into a firehose of pro-Trump commentary have been rewarded by Trump, who has tapped the entrepreneur to oversee efforts to slash government regulations and spending.As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk operates out of an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where most White House staff work and from where he has launched his assault on the federal government. Musk’s power under DOGE is being challenged in the courts.Even before Trump took office, there were signs that Musk’s vast influence with the new administration was registering with the public and paying dividends for Tesla.Tesla’s stock surged more than 60% by December. Since then, its stock price has dropped, but still remains 40% higher than it was before Trump’s election.“For Musk,” said Ives, the technology analyst, “betting on Trump is a poker move for the ages.”
Proposed actions will help Tesla
The White House did not respond to questions about how it would handle investigations and government oversight involving Tesla or other Musk companies. A spokesman for the transition team said last month that the White House would ensure that DOGE and “those involved with it are compliant with all legal guidelines and conflicts of interest.”In the weeks before Trump took office on Jan. 20, the president-elect’s transition team recommended changes that would benefit the billionaire and his car company, including scrapping the federal order requiring carmakers to report crash data involving self-driving and partially automated technology.The action would be a boon for Tesla, which has reported a vast majority of the crashes that triggered a series of investigations and recalls.The transition team also recommended shelving a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, something Musk has publicly called for.“Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla,” Musk wrote in a post on X as he campaigned and raised money for Trump in July.Auto industry experts say the move would have a nominal impact on Tesla by far the largest electric vehicle maker in the U.S. but have a potentially devastating impact on its competitors in the EV sector since they are still struggling to secure a foothold in the market.Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Before the election, he posted a message on X, saying he had never asked Trump “for any favors, nor has he offered me any.”Although most of the changes that Musk might seek for Tesla could unfold quickly, there is one long-term goal that could impact the autonomous vehicle industry for decades to come.Though nearly 30 states have rules that specifically govern self-driving cars, the federal government has yet to craft such regulations.During a late October call with Tela investors, as Musk was pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign, he signaled support for having the federal government create these rules.“There should be a federal approval process for autonomous vehicles,” Musk said on the call. “If there’s a department of government efficiency, I’ll try to help make that happen.”Musk leads that very organization.
Those affected by Tesla crashes worry about lax oversight
People whose lives have been forever changed by Tesla crashes fear that dangerous and fatal accidents may increase if the federal government’s investigative and recall powers are restricted.They say they worry that the company may otherwise never be held accountable for its failures, like the one that took the life of 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon.The college student was on a date with her boyfriend, gazing at the stars on the side of a rural Florida road, when they were struck by an out-of-control Tesla driving on Autopilot a system that allows Tesla cars to operate without driver input. The car had blown through a stop sign, a flashing light and five yellow warning signs, according to dashcam video and a police report.Benavides Leon died at the scene; her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, suffered injuries but survived. A federal investigation determined that Autopilot in Teslas at this time was faulty and needed repairs.“We, as a family, have never been the same,” said Benavides Leon’s sister, Neima. “I’m an engineer, and everything that we design and we build has to be by important codes and regulations. This technology cannot be an exception.”“It has to be investigated when it fails,” she added. “Because it does fail.”Tesla’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement on Twitter in December 2023, Tesla pointed to an earlier lawsuit the Benavides Leon’s family had brought against the driver who struck the college student. He testified that despite using Autopilot, “I was highly aware that it was still my responsibility to operate the vehicle safely.”Tesla also said the driver “was pressing the accelerator to maintain 60 mph,” an action that effectively overrode Autopilot, which would have otherwise restricted the speed to 45 mph on the rural route, something Benavides Leon’s attorney disputes.
Federal probes into Tesla
The federal agency that has the most power over Tesla and the entire automobile industry is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is part of the Department of Transportation.NHTSA sets automobile safety standards that must be met before vehicles can enter the marketplace. It also has a quasi-law enforcement arm, the Office of Defects Investigation, which has the power to launch probes into crashes and seek recalls for safety defects.The agency has six pending investigations into Tesla’s self-driving technology, prompted by dozens of crashes that took place when the computerized systems were in use.Other federal agencies are also investigating Musk and Tesla, and all of those probes could be sidelined by Musk-friendly officials:The Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department are separately investigating whether Musk and Tesla overstated the autonomous capabilities of their vehicles, creating dangerous situations in which drivers may over rely on the car’s technology.The Justice Department is also probing whether Tesla misled customers about how far its electric vehicles can travel before needing a charge.The National Labor Relations Board is weighing 12 unfair labor practice allegations leveled by workers at Tesla plants.The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is asking a federal judge to force Tesla to enact reforms and pay compensatory and punitive damages and backpay to Black employees who say they were subjected to racist attacks. In a federal lawsuit, the agency has alleged that supervisors and other employees at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California, routinely hurled racist insults at Black employees.Experts said most, if not all, of those investigations could be shut down, especially at the Justice Department where Trump has long shown a willingness to meddle in the department’s affairs. The Trump administration has already ordered the firing of dozens of prosecutors who handled the criminal cases from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.“DOJ is not going to be prosecuting Elon Musk,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Justice Department’s public integrity section who served during the Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations. “I’d expect that any investigations that were ongoing will be ground to an abrupt end.”Trump has also taken steps to gain control of the NLRB and EEOC. Last month, he fired Democratic members of the board and commission, breaking with decades of precedent. One member has sued, and two others are exploring legal options.Tesla and Musk have denied wrongdoing in all those investigations and are fighting the probes.
The small safety agency in Musk’s crosshairs
The federal agency that appears to have enjoyed the most success in changing Tesla’s behavior is NHTSA, an organization of about 750 staffers that has forced the company to hand over crash data and cooperate in its investigations and requested recalls.“NHTSA has been a thorn in Musk’s side for over the last decade, and he’s grappled with almost every three-letter agency in the Beltway,” said Ives, the Wall Street analyst who covers the technology sector and automobile industry. “That’s all created what looks to be a really big soap opera in 2025.”Musk has repeatedly blamed the federal government for impeding Tesla’s progress and creating negative publicity with recalls of his cars after its self-driving technology malfunctions or crashes.“The word ‘recall’ should be recalled,” Musk posted on Twitter (now X) in 2014. Two years ago, he posted, “The word ‘recall’ for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!”Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, said some investigations might continue under Trump, but a recall is less likely to happen if a defect is found.As with most car companies, Tesla’s recalls have so far been voluntary. The threat of public hearings about a defect that precedes a NHTSA-ordered recall has generally prompted car companies to act on their own.That threat could be easily stripped away by the new NHTSA administrator, who will be a Trump appointee.“If there isn’t a threat of recall, will Tesla do them?” Brooks said. “Unfortunately, this is where politics seeps in.”
NHTSA conducting several probes of Tesla
Among the active NHTSA investigations, several are examining fundamental aspects of Tesla’s partially automated driving systems that were in use when dozens of crashes occurred.An investigation of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system started in October after Tesla reported four crashes to NHTSA in which the vehicles had trouble navigating through sun glare, fog and airborne dust. In one of the accidents, an Arizona woman was killed after stopping on a freeway to help someone invlved in another crash.Under pressure from NHTSA, Tesla has twice recalled the “Full Self-Driving” feature for software updates. The technology the most advanced of Tesla’s Autopilot systems is supposed to allow drivers to travel from point to point with little human intervention. But repeated malfunctions led NHTSA to recently launch a new inquiry that includes a crash in July that killed a motorcyclist near Seattle.NHTSA announced its latest investigation in January into “Actually Smart Summon,” a Tesla technology that allows drivers to remotely move a car, after the agency learned of four incidents from a driver and several media reports.The agency said that in each collision, the vehicles were using the system that Tesla pushed out in a September software update that was “failing to detect posts or parked vehicles, resulting in a crash.” NHTSA also criticized Tesla for failing to notify the agency of those accidents.NHTSA is also conducting a probe into whether a 2023 recall of Autopilot, the most basic of Tesla’s partially automated driver assistance systems, was effective.That recall was supposed to boost the number of controls and alerts to keep drivers engaged; it had been prompted by an earlier NHTSA investigation that identified hundreds of crashes involving Autopilot that resulted in scores of injuries and more than a dozen deaths.In a letter to Tesla in April, agency investigators noted that crashes involving Autopilot continue and that they could not observe a difference between warnings issued to drivers before or after the new software had been installed.Critics have said that Teslas don’t have proper sensors to be fully self-driving. Nearly all other companies working on autonomous vehicles use radar and laser sensors in addition to cameras to see better in the dark or in poor visibility conditions. Tesla, on the other hand, relies only on cameras to spot hazards.Musk has said that human drivers rely on their eyesight, so autonomous cars should be able to also get by with just cameras. He has called technology that relies on radar and light detection to discern objects a “fool’s errand.”Bryant Walker Smith, a Stanford Law School scholar and a leading automated driving expert, said Musk’s contention that the federal government is holding him back is not accurate. The problem, Smith said, is that Tesla’s autonomous vehicles cannot perform as advertised.“Blaming the federal government for holding them back, it provides a convenient, if dubious, scapegoat for the lack of an actual automated driving system that works,” Smith said.Smith and other autonomous vehicle experts say Musk has felt pressure to provide Tesla shareholders with excuses for repeated delays in rolling out its futuristic cars. The financial stake is enormous, which Musk acknowledged during a 2022 interview. He said the development of a fully self-driving vehicle was “really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero.”The collisions from Tesla’s malfunctioning technology on its vehicles have led not only to deaths but also catastrophic injuries that have forever altered people’s lives.Attorneys representing people injured in Tesla crashes or who represent surviving family members of those who died say without NHTSA, the only other way to hold the car company accountable is through civil lawsuits.“When government can’t do it, then the civil justice system is left to pick up the slack,” said Brett Schreiber, whose law firm is handling four Tesla cases.However, Schreiber and other lawyers say if the federal government’s investigative powers don’t remain intact, Tesla may also not be held accountable in court.In the pending wrongful death lawsuit that Neima Benavides Leon filed against Tesla after her sister’s death, her attorney told a Miami district judge the lawsuit would have likely been dropped if NHTSA hadn’t investigated and found defects with the Autopilot system.“All along we were hoping that the NHTSA investigation would produce what it did, in fact, end up producing, which is a finding of product defect and a recall,” attorney Doug Eaton said during a March court hearing. “And we had told you very early on in the case if NHTSA had not found that, we may very well drop the case. But they did, in fact, find this.”
Kimberly Kindy and Brian Slodysko, Associated Press
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/
President Donald Trump said Monday he is banning federal use of paper straws, saying they “don’t work” and don’t last very long. Instead he wants the government to exclusively move to plastic.“It’s a ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump said as he signed an executive order to reverse federal purchasing policies that encourage paper straws and restrict plastic ones. The order directs federal agencies to stop buying paper straws “and otherwise ensure that paper straws are no longer provided within agency buildings.”The move by Trump who has long railed against paper straws, and whose 2019 reelection campaign sold Trump-branded reusable plastic straws for $15 per pack of 10 targets a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.Trump declared President Joe Biden’s policy “DEAD!” in a social media post over the weekend.While plastic straws have been blamed for polluting oceans and harming marine life, Trump said Monday that he thinks “it’s OK” to continue using them. “I don’t think that plastic is going to affect the shark very much as they’re eating, as they’re munching their way through the ocean,” he said at a White House announcement.Several U.S. states and cities have banned plastic straws, and some restaurants no longer automatically give them to customers. But plastic straws are only a small part of the problem. The environment is littered with single-use plastic food and beverage containers water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, shopping bags and more.Around the world, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic enters the ocean every minute from a range of sources, including plastic bags, toothbrushes, bottles, food packaging and more, experts say. As those materials break down in the environment, microplastics are turning up in the stomachs of fish, birds and other animals, as well as in human blood and tissue.And plastic manufacturing releases planet-warming greenhouse gases and other dangerous pollutants. More than 90% of plastic products are derived from fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, and millions of tons of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans every year. Many multinational companies have moved away from plastic straws and have made reducing plastic use across their operations central to their sustainability goals, making Trump’s decision an outlier in the business world.Trump’s order is “more about messaging than finding solutions,” said Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, noting that most U.S. voters support requiring companies to reduce single-use plastic packaging and foodware.“President Trump is moving in the wrong direction on single-use plastics,” Leavitt said. “The world is facing a plastic pollution crisis, and we can no longer ignore one of the biggest environmental threats facing our oceans and our planet today.”The plastic manufacturing industry applauded Trump’s move.“Straws are just the beginning,” Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, said in a statement. “‘Back to Plastic’ is a movement we should all get behind.”More than 390 million straws are used every day in the United States, mostly for 30 minutes or less, according to advocacy group Straws Turtle Island Restoration Network. Straws take at least 200 years to decompose and pose a threat to turtles and other wildlife as they degrade into microplastics, the group says.“To prevent another sea turtle from becoming a victim to plastic, we must make personal lifestyle alterations to fight for these species,” the group said in a statement.Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic. About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations.Globally, nations are creating a treaty to address plastic pollution. Leaders met for a week in South Korea late last year but didn’t reach an agreement. Talks resume this year as more than 100 countries pursue a pact that limits plastic production as well as tackles cleanup and recycling.The U.S., China and Germany are the biggest players in the global plastics trade. U.S. manufacturers have asked Trump to remain at the negotiating table, and to revert to Biden’s previous position that focused on redesigning plastic products, recycling and reuse.White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who presented the executive order to Trump, told him the push for paper straws has cost the government and private industry “an absolute ton of money and left consumers all over the country wildly dissatisfied with their straws. It really is something that affects ordinary Americans in their everyday lives.”
Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this story.
Matthew Daly, Associated Press
It has been a tumultuous few weeks since Donald Trump took office for the second time as president of the United States, While Trump has garnered headlines for his outlandish executive orders aimed at recasting the country in his own shape, Elon Musk, the tech billionaire turned government quango-buster as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been no less busy.
Musk and a small group of staff working under him have been traveling between government departments, demanding access to data they hold with the purported goal of making government operations more efficient. Serious questionsincluding by the U.S. Treasury itselfhave been raised about whether thats the case, with Musk and his team running roughshod over government and data access norms. (That those barriers exist, Musk and his team have argued on social media, is exactly why they need access to details of how the government works.)
The immediate impact is already being felt. And plenty of alarms are being raised. But its not just the here and now that millions of Americans need to consider when thinking about their data integrity. The shockwaves of Musks shock and awe approach to accessing government data will continue for decades to come.
What we know from Musk’s model of what he did to Twitterwhich, unfortunately, seems to be the model for what he’s doing with sort of orders of magnitude more complex and sensitive government systemsis really not reassuring, says Ian Brown, a visiting professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation Law School in Rio de Janeiro. (DOGE did not respond to Fast Company‘s request for comment.)
Reports indicate that DOGE has already been granted access to highly sensitive personal information across a number of federal agencies. That sensitive data includes information such as a persons social security number (SSNs), family income, and tax records. It is hard to overstate how devastating any leakage of information of this level of sensitivity would be because it is high-value data to identity thieves, deeply personal, and difficult to fix as this type of information is intended to stick with you for a long time, says Elizabeth Laird, director of equity in civic technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a U.S. non-profit. (SSNs are appended to you for your entire lifemeaning that any breach of them could have a long-term impact.)
What Musk is reportedly doing is not just to say, In order to modernize these U.S. government federal processes, we’re going to take significant parts of the data and do new things with it, says Brown. Hes saying, Were going to just completely bypass all those controls, take the data wholesale out of the protected government environments, and import it into environments DOGE is running with who knows what security and privacy controls, who knows what technical limits on what is done with that data, who gets access to it.
There doesnt have to be an actual breach of that data in order to have an impact on users, Laird reckons. Just knowing that this information has been shared without your consent can inflict distress and can lead to life-impacting harms like identity theft, she says.
Ideally, the best way to mitigate the risk of a data breach would be to not collect or share that data in the first place, Laird says. The second best thing to do is to place strict safeguards on its handling and sharing, she adds. Unfortunately, the public, including individuals whose data is being shared, is left in the dark about what is being done to protect them in the face of these increased security risks.
Anupam Chander, a law professor at Georgetown University, feels these concerns on a personal level. When I filed my tax return electronically last year, I didn’t think that my data might possibly end up in the hands of people poring through files with a political agenda, he says. One hopes our private data is not sitting unencrypted on a 19-year-old’s laptop somewhere.
