Well-known Tesla firmware hacker and data miner @greentheonly played a pivotal role in a recent landmark case against Tesla, helping uncover critical crash data the company initially claimed it did not have — reports The Washington Post. His discovery ultimately turned the tide in court, leading to a massive $243 million verdict against the automaker over a 2019 fatal crash in Key Largo, Florida.
The case stemmed from a collision in which a Tesla Model S, with Autopilot engaged, plowed into a young couple standing near their parked truck, killing 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and severely injuring her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. While Tesla said it did not possess the electronic “collision snapshot” that captured what the car’s cameras saw in the final moments before impact, @greentheonly proved otherwise.
In 2024, after years of fruitless attempts to obtain the data through Tesla, the plaintiffs’ attorneys turned to the hacker. Working out of a Starbucks near Miami International Airport after being flown in from his home hundreds of miles away, @greentheonly successfully extracted the data from the vehicle’s Autopilot control unit. His findings confirmed that Tesla had received the crash snapshot within moments of the wreck — and that the information should have been accessible all along.
The recovered data revealed that the vehicle detected the pedestrians and plotted a path directly through them, raising serious questions about Autopilot’s performance. The jury deliberated less than a day before assigning Tesla 33% liability, awarding $129 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages. Of that, Tesla is responsible for $42.6 million in compensatory damages plus the entire punitive award, totaling $243 million. The company has said it plans to appeal.
Tesla reportedly attempted to quietly resolve the case before trial, offering the plaintiffs a confidential settlement. Court documents also show the company refused a $60 million settlement proposal before the trial concluded in the much higher $243 million judgment.
For Tesla, the outcome is one of the biggest legal setbacks yet involving Autopilot. The verdict not only highlights the role crash data can play in such lawsuits but also sets a precedent for how juries view Tesla’s handling of evidence. As other Autopilot-related cases move toward trial, @greentheonly’s intervention in this case underscores just how critical transparency around Tesla’s “computer on wheels” really is.
