As a guest on Sophia Bush’s podcast “Work in Progress,” Michelle Obama spoke about the freedom she has felt since leaving the White House and stepping down from the role of First Lady—particularly when it comes to making her own decisions.
“For the first time, I was able to make decisions just for myself,” she said. “The interesting thing is that when I say ‘no,’ most people say, ‘I understand,’ and it’s okay with me.”
Michelle reflected on the pressure women often feel to live up to others’ expectations. “That’s the problem we women struggle with—disappointing people,” she said.
She also addressed the rumors surrounding her marriage to Barack, attributing them to society’s discomfort with women’s autonomy. “People couldn’t imagine me making my own decision, so they had to assume my husband and I were getting a divorce,” she explained.
The former First Lady pointed out that the speculation stems from a deeper societal problem: “It’s unacceptable for a grown woman to make decisions for herself. Society does that to us. And if it doesn’t fit the stereotype of what people expect of us, it’s labeled as something negative and terrible.”
But almost a decade later, that promise has still not been fulfilled—and there is little sign that it will be in the near future.
In 2022, a judge set a notable precedent by ordering Tesla to upgrade a customer’s self-driving computer for free, allowing them to access Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) program at no additional cost.
This ruling was significant because Tesla had originally claimed that all vehicles produced in 2016 would be equipped with the “necessary hardware for fully autonomous driving.” Based on this promise, owners of these vehicles should already have the necessary hardware to access advanced FSD features.
The controversy was further exacerbated by Elon Musk’s admission in January of this year that the HW3 (Hardware 3) computer installed in millions of Teslas was not powerful enough to support true, unattended autonomous driving.
Therefore, the judge’s decision could ultimately benefit the approximately four million Tesla owners with HW3 systems and potentially pave the way for broader eligibility for free hardware upgrades.
However, replacing these computers could prove to be an extremely costly undertaking for Tesla. The HW3 hardware is installed in several models—from the Model 3 to the Model X—making the scope of the potential upgrade enormous.
Any replacement would require precise engineering to integrate the new hardware, and according to industry estimates by the International Business Times, the total cost could exceed $10 billion.
Alternatively, Tesla could choose to offer financial compensation instead of hardware upgrades. This would also pose challenges—particularly when determining fair payouts for customers, some of whom purchased the Full Self-Driving (FSD) package years ago in anticipation of future capabilities.
In the worst case scenario, Tesla’s failure to satisfactorily resolve the issue could result in further lawsuits and contribute to a loss of customer confidence in the brand.
