In 2019, 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon was killed in Miami, Florida, when she was struck down by a Tesla vehicle. The car involved in the fatal accident had Tesla's driver assistance system Autopilot engaged at the time, and Benavides Leon's loved ones have been fighting through the courts to determine who was at fault ever since. Tesla itself claimed until recently that it had lost key crash data that could elucidate an answer—right up until a hacker found it.
The hacker in question is only identified by his X handle @greentheonly, who a report from The Washington Post says has built a "robust social media following for his work recovering data from damaged Teslas and posting his findings" online. @greentheonly was apparently already consulting with the plaintiff's legal team when the crashed Tesla's physical control units were recovered from the Florida Highway Patrol in 2024.
Tesla advised the control units be switched on to see what data remained—but hacker @greentheonly strongly advised against doing this. Speaking with The Washington Post, the hacker said, "‘Let’s just power it on and update [it] and see what happens’ — If I wanted to destroy evidence on the computer, that would be exactly the advice I would give."
The Washington Post notes that, at the time of the crash, it was standard practice for Autopilot control units to upload their crash data to Tesla's servers before marking the vehicle's onboard crash data for deletion—so you can see why turning on the recovered control unit anywhere near an internet connection was probably a bad idea.
In the end, @greentheonly was able to recover the sought after crash data by flying to meet with the plaintiff's legal team in Miami, and sitting down with a forensic copy of the Autopilot unit’s contents recorded to a USB drive. Taking a look on his ThinkPad, @greentheonly found the missing data in minutes, alongside the 'collision snapshot' sent to Tesla's servers shortly after the 2019 crash. Tesla has since admitted in court it does in fact still have a copy of this data.
Tesla's official line via its attorney Joel Smith was that its handling of this key data had been "clumsy," rather than intentional obfuscation. Smith argued in court that it was not in the company's own interests to hide the data, as the case was made it in fact demonstrates the driver was chiefly at fault for failing to react to the presence of pedestrians. Smith told jurors, "We didn’t think we had it, and we found out we did. And, thankfully, we did, because this is an amazingly helpful piece of information.”
The hacker used the data recovered locally from the car to create an annotated video of what he claims Autopilot 'saw' right before the crash. This depicted, among other haunting details, the driver assistance system plotting a path right through a truck belonging to Naibel Benavides Leon's boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. Benavides Leon and Angulo had been standing beside the truck, behind reflectors and signage clearly marking the end of the road.
Though the hacker didn't testify in court himself, the recovered data proved a key piece of evidence in the wrongful death suit heard in Miami federal court last month, resulting in a $243 million verdict against Tesla. The company has since asked the court to throw out this verdict, arguing in a filing made on Friday that the historic award amount flies in the face of "common sense" and "Auto manufacturers do not insure the world against harms caused by reckless drivers."
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