Elon Musk goes “Full Asshole” and personally cancels blogger’s Tesla order after ‘rude’ post
A Californian venture capitalist had his Tesla Motors Model X order cancelled after he wrote about a badly run launch event
Alex Hern
@alexhern
THE GUARDIAN
Unimaginable wealth has brought Elon Musk a lot of benefits, from being able to build a private spaceflight company to planning a magnet-powered vacuum tube supersonic transport system between LA and San Francisco – and be taken seriously. But perhaps the best perk of being Elon Musk is the ability to be unbelievably petty.
The Californian venture capitalist Stewart Alsop learned that to his cost, he says, after he wrote an open letter to Musk about the badly run launch event for the Tesla Motors Model X (the newest car from Musk’s electric vehicle startup).
Headlined “Dear @ElonMusk: you should be ashamed of yourself”, the letter listed Alsop’s issues with the event: it started late, it focused too much on safety, and it was so packed that even people like Alsop, who had placed a $5,000 deposit on the car (which was originally supposed to ship in 2013, but had only delivered 208 cars by the end of 2015), didn’t get the chance to test drive it.
Alsop concluded that “it would still be nice if you showed some class and apologised to the people who believe in this product”.
Instead, Alsop says, Musk cancelled his pre-order.
In a follow-up post, “Banned By Tesla!”, Alsop relayed his phone conversation with Musk: “I also hear that you are not comfortable having me own a Tesla car and have cancelled my order for a Tesla Model X.”
He added “I must also admit that I am a little taken aback to be banned by Tesla. When I wrote a blog post about my BMW X1 called ‘My Car Makes Me Feel Stoopid’, the CEO of BMW didn’t take the car back.”
Musk, for his part, tweeted to indicate that he doesn’t understand what the fuss is about:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2016
Must be a slow news day if denying service to a super rude customer gets this much attention
It’s not the first time Musk has demonstrated the level of personal control he exerts over Tesla. In late January, a frustrated Tesla customer revealed that a refurbished car on which he had put a deposit was never delivered – because Musk was using it to test out a new version of the fleet’s “Autopilot” feature.
Tesla eventually said that that “due to human error, a car from our test fleet was offered for sale. We apologise that this led to a frustrating experience. We are working to ensure that it never happens again.”
“Elon Musk is a Lying Scumbag” say critics!
It is, now, well known that all of Elon Musk’s companies would not exist, today, if not for White House kick-backs and West Wing mandated steam-rolling of his competitors, in order to protect his loose relationship with morality.
The many news article about how Musk has based his whole career on getting handed taxpayer cash, as Payola, in exchange for his partners funding political campaigns, are published around the world.
While Musk may be a con-artist, carpet bagger and public funds thief, one has to wonder if his ability to convincingly lie is incumbent to his nature.
Is he like all of those zillions of guys that you see on that TV show: “48 Hours”? You know, the ones who meet the girl, her family says “he is wonderful”, his co-workers say he “was the nicest guy”. His neighbor says he “wouldn’t hurt a fly’… and you always find out he cut off her head, ate her liver and chopped her into sausage. Is he like that? Always smiling, but hiding a meat cleaver behind the smile?
Musk has taken nearly two decades to sell only as many cars as a “real” car company sells in two weeks? He says he had to “figure out” how to build a car, so that is why it took so long. Is that true? Why did he spend so long, on something so rudimentary, only to have it turn out to be “ the official car of douchebags and assholes”?
In those two decades, he has spent more money on those few cars than other real car companies spent on 10 cars. He says his run of the mill car was “so hard to build” and that was why it was $118,000.00 over budget PER CAR, at the time he applied for federal emergency cash. Was it really hard to build or was he siphoning money out to political campaigns?
He says the car is “Totally different” but it is the same electric car layout that electric cars have had since the 1800’s. The Nissan Leaf and all of the other famous car company electric cars did not have any of the problems, delays or issues that Musk always has. Is he lying or just an idiot?
Critics say that Tesla was created to war-profiteer Afghan lithium that his campaign financier partners had inside deals with Russian mobsters for. They say that Solar City was created to accept kick-backs from Steven Chu at the Department of Energy and that Space X was created so Musk’s partners, at spy agency IN-Q-Tel, could profit off of public surveillance systems. Musk says “no”, in spite of millions of pages of evidence to the contrary. Is he lying?
Bernie Tse, and about 18 Tesla employees, worked for Elon Musk to create a battery sales division, but that fell apart when massive amounts of federal reports emerged, in 2006 and 2007 that proved that Tesla partner: Panasonic, was involved in bribes, crime, dumping, killing workers with poison chemicals and other crimes. At the same time, Elon Musk saw reports that confirmed that his lithium ion would blow up spontaneously, catch on fire when stressed by a car, exude toxic fumes that cause cancer, liver damage, cellular breakdown and fetal mutation and that you had to invade Afghanistan and Bolivia to get the lithium. Even, today, as Tesla’s, hover-boards, and numerous lithium ion devices, explode regularly, Musk says there is “no problem” with lithium ion. Is he lying?
The Department of Energy documents filed by Elon Musk, to get taxpayer cash have over 100 things that Musk promised, in writing, that turned out to never have happened and/or never been true. Did he lie..or just have a few typos?
His numerous divorces and break-ups have resulted in people, who knew him intimately, saying he was a “fraud and a “liar”.
His co-founders at Tesla sued him saying he was a “liar” and a “scam artist”.
His investors have said, in lawsuits, that he is a “liar” and a “fraud”.
Erick Strickland, the head of the highway safety agency, was confronted with covering up the DRAMATIC number of safety issues known about the Tesla. He quit the next day. What doesn’t Musk quit?
In a recent article about Musk and Space X, with a cover photo depicting Musk in the company of rats, his own employees are quoted calling him a “liar”.
There are hundreds and hundreds of news articles describing different things that Musk has lied about.
Is Musk really a liar? Is he a scumbag Silicon Valley misogynist laboring under another facade of self-deluded privilege and narcissistic self-promoting elitism?
While Musk’s partner: Google, gladly spins out Musk’s “Look-at-me” self glorification press hype on a daily basis, is Musk telling the truth in those wild-eyed pronouncements?
In his latest press hype: Musk now wants to build a haven for the 1%, On Mars, much like his peer: Vinohd Khosla tried to build a haven for 1%-ers on a public beach, he took over, in Half Moon Bay, California.
We can only pray that Musk will go to Mars as soon as possible. Ideally, tomorrow…and stay there!