Tesla FSD: Active User Count Aligns With Musk Compensation Metrics

Tesla's reported number of active Full Self-Driving subscriptions has risen to 1.74 million, a 67% increase year-over-year. However, a footnote in the Q3 2026 shareholder letter reveals that this figure is calculated according to the company's 2025 CEO Performance Award guidelines, rather than a standard definition of a monthly subscription. This specific methodology is used to track progress toward the milestones required for Elon Musk's compensation package, which includes a target of 10 million active FSD subscriptions.

The definition used includes both upfront purchases and monthly payments. Consequently, owners who bought FSD for a one-time fee, in some cases years ago at prices reaching $15,000, are included in this subscription total as long as their vehicle remains active. Tesla ceased offering FSD as a one-time purchase on February 14, 2026, and new customers can now only subscribe for $99 a month in the US. Free trials are excluded from the 1.74 million figure. This is the same approach Tesla used in April when it reported 1.28 million active FSD subscriptions. Six months later, the company still does not disclose how many of the 1.74 million users are paying a recurring monthly fee.

The same reporting method is applied elsewhere in the shareholder letter. The cumulative deliveries figure, now at 10.2 million, also aligns with the CEO performance award and includes any unsupervised Robotaxis placed into commercial operation. The performance award has a corresponding milestone of 20 million vehicles delivered.

The 2025 CEO Performance Award is structured around 12 tranches, each requiring both a market capitalization milestone and an operational target. The operational list includes 20 million vehicles delivered, 10 million active FSD subscriptions, 1 million Optimus robots, 1 million robotaxis in commercial operation, and adjusted EBITDA targets. As of June 30, Tesla considered only one of these targets, 20 million deliveries, to be probable.

Tesla also reports that over 75% of new deliveries in North America included FSD subscriptions in Q3, which it describes as a nearly twenty percentage point sequential increase. The company states its belief that “FSD is driving demand in markets where it is available.” However, the shareholder letter does not define this attach rate, nor does it clarify if subscriptions started with an introductory offer are included. The active-subscription metric excludes free trials, but it is not specified whether the same exclusion applies to the 75% attach rate.

The company added 260,000 net FSD subscriptions in Q3, its strongest quarter to date. At this rate, it would take approximately eight years to reach the 10 million target. If the pace of the last 12 months continues, at roughly 700,000 new subscriptions per year, it would take closer to 12 years to reach that milestone. The award runs until 2035. Hundreds of thousands of users counted in the current total were sold unsupervised self-driving capabilities that Tesla has yet to deliver.