Tesla Reports 1.74 Million FSD Users Using Method That Helps Pay Elon Musk

Tesla now reports 1.74 million active Full Self-Driving subscriptions, a figure that represents a 67% increase over the same period last year. This headline number serves as a key indicator of the company's software growth. However, a footnote in the Q3 2026 shareholder letter reveals that this total is calculated to align with the 2025 CEO Performance Award. The metric includes both customers who pay a monthly fee and those who purchased the feature upfront years ago.

This counting method is significant because reaching 10 million active FSD subscriptions is a specific milestone Elon Musk must achieve to earn his compensation package. It also complicates the narrative for investors who may assume all 1.74 million users are currently paying a recurring fee. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of these users were originally sold the promise of unsupervised self-driving, a capability Tesla has not yet fully delivered.

Tesla stopped selling FSD as a one-time purchase on February 14, 2026. New customers in the US now pay $99 per month. However, anyone who paid the upfront cost, which reached up to $15,000, remains in the active count as long as their vehicle is operational. The only exclusion from this total is free trials. In April, when the company reported 1.28 million users, it did not clarify how many were paying monthly. That distinction remains absent from the current report.

Similar accounting practices appear in other parts of the letter. The cumulative deliveries figure now stands at 10.2 million, a number that includes unsupervised Robotaxis in commercial operation to match the pay package targets. The letter also states that more than 75% of new North American deliveries included FSD subscriptions in Q3. This represents a nearly 20 percentage point increase from the previous quarter. Tesla believes this feature is driving demand in markets where it is available, though it does not define exactly how the attach rate is calculated or if introductory offers are included.

Musk’s 2025 award consists of 12 tranches, each requiring specific market cap and operational milestones. These include delivering 20 million vehicles, reaching 10 million FSD subscriptions, and deploying 1 million Optimus robots. As of June 30, Tesla considered only the 20 million delivery target probable. The company added 260,000 net FSD subscriptions in Q3, its best quarter to date. At this pace, it would take about eight years to reach the 10 million goal. At the average rate of the last 12 months, it would take closer to 12 years. The award remains in effect until 2035.

A top comment from a reader named PurpleCupcake noted that if a change of control occurs, such as a merger with SpaceX, all compensation metrics vest and count as achieved. The comment also highlighted the irony of counting users who were promised unsupervised driving in a supervised service. The board wrote the definition, Musk’s pay depends on it, and the company has not disclosed how many users pay the monthly fee. Investors are now waiting to see if the high attach rate translates into long-term retention.