Elon Musk took a dig at his robotaxi rival, Waymo, calling the vehicles “pet destroyers,” and said Tesla Robotaxi has solved the issue of avoiding stray pets.
During a livestreamed interview at an event hosted by Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley on Saturday, Musk called out Waymo for its reported collisions with animals. “What a lot of people don’t know is that Waymos are like pet destroyers,” Musk said, laughing. “Well, maybe Waymo’s made some improvements on that front, but they do run over a lot of pets, and we don’t want to run over pets.” Waymo has gotten flak over animal collisions before, most notably after its run-in with a beloved bodega cat in a San Francisco neighborhood back in October 2025.
The feline, named KitKat, died after it was run over by Waymo’s rear right tire, video obtained by The New York Times showed.
That is not Waymo’s first collision with an animal.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Standing General Order requires autonomous vehicle companies like Waymo to report qualifying crashes.
NHTSA data showed that between July 2025 and July 2026, Waymo reported at least 9 crashes involving animals, 6 of which Waymo described as domestic animals.
A Waymo spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla’s robotaxi service also reported a collision involving an animal during the same time period, but the incident involved a supervised robotaxi.
Tesla also operated a smaller fleet, and most of its unsupervised operations were concentrated in one city: Austin.
Musk said during the virtual interview that Tesla Robotaxi will be able to detect roaming pets at night. “We have these challenges of literally like: gray kittens on a gray tarmac with tar seams at night in low visibility.
And it’s like, ‘Can we not run over the kittens,’ type of thing,” he said.
Musk added that Tesla will deploy the update, though he did not specify when.
Contact this reporter via email at lloydlee@businessinsider.com or Signal at lloydlee.71.
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