What’s Up, Elon: The 60 Minutes Interview Revealed Musk Doesn’t Respect the SEC, Nobody Reviews His Tweets + More

Nexter.org keeps in touch with the latest hot news and announcements from the most famous tech inventor and entrepreneur  – Elon Musk. Here’s what you might have missed.

Tesla tests Autopilot upgrade

Source: cbsnews

Tesla has teased that Navigate on Autopilot will gradually handle more and more driving responsibilities, but those aren’t just fanciful long-term plans – they’re very much on the roadmap for the near future. In the midst of a public pitch for Navigate on Autopilot, Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla is currently testing “traffic lights, stop signs & roundabouts” in pre-release software.

It’s not certain when these features will be available.

Elon Musk missed Model 3 production targets due to stupidity

Source: cbsnews

Tesla missing its deadlines for Model 3 production targets was not done on purpose, rather it was done out of stupidity, CEO Elon Musk said during an interview with ’60 Minutes’ on Sunday.

“Well, I mean, punctuality is not my strong suit…. Why would people think that if I’ve been late on all the other models that I’d suddenly be on time with this one,” Musk said.

When it was pointed out to him that his critics would call this lying he countered by explaining it was actually stupidity.

“People should not ascribe to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity. So it’s like, just because I’m like dumb at predicting dates does not mean I am untruthful. I don’t know. I’ve never made a mass-produced car. How am I supposed to know with precision when it’s going to get done?”

Elon Musk says nobody is approving his tweets and he doesn’t respect SEC 

After Musk tweeted he was considering taking $TSLA private, the SEC charged him with securities fraud. In the settlement, he agreed to have his tweets about the company reviewed in advance. https://t.co/S5nUdnG64y pic.twitter.com/RMkYjPO4Yk

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 10, 2018

Elon Musk doesn’t respect the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday night.

Musk told CBS’s Lesley Stahl that none of his tweets have been censored since reaching a settlement with the SEC in September. He said that no one has to read his tweets before he hits send. He also explained he’d personally picked his successor as Tesla’s chairperson, before undercutting her authority by saying he could “get anything done that I want.”

“I want to be clear, I do not respect the SEC, I do not respect them,” Musk said when asked about the SEC lawsuit brought against Musk earlier this year.

The SEC sued Musk in September alleging that he shared “false and misleading statements” about taking Tesla private when he tweeted about doing exactly that.

Musk reached a settlement with the SEC in late September that required him to pay $20 million and step down as Tesla’s chairman for a minimum of three years. Tesla was also required to pay $20 million to the SEC as part of the deal.

Tesla, Tezla or Faraday?

Tesla almost had a very different name—until Elon Musk and his co-founders bought the rights to “Tesla” for $75,000.

He and the company’s other founders did not come up with or own the name Tesla, the Tesla CEO told Lesley Stahl on a 60 Minutes interview airing Sunday night. Instead, they bought it for $75,000 from Brad Siewert, a man in Sacramento who owned the rights to Tesla Motors, which was named after Nikola Tesla, the scientist and engineer.

In a post on Twitter sharing “Tesla history trivia,” Musk said that the co-founders bought the name from Siewert in 2004. Siewert had filed for the name 10 years earlier.

What's in a name? For Tesla, $75,000. Elon Musk says he had to buy his company's name—and tells Lesley Stahl how he pronounces "Tesla." https://t.co/HBa3Oztgag pic.twitter.com/RYjQeEjud6

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 7, 2018

Tesla’s backup name? Faraday. That name comes from Faraday’s law of induction, named for scientist Michael Faraday.

Musk also told Stahl that he pronounces the company name as “Tezla.” He said, “It’s with a Z, because I get sort of a Z-ish sound.”

SpaceX’s failed landing

For the first time ever, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fails to stick a ground landing.

Falcon 9 hoisted a Dragon spacecraft into orbit, bound for the International Space Station.

The Falcon’s first stage, the largest and most expensive portion of the rocket, was expected to navigate itself back to land after launching the Dragon spacecraft. But instead of gently touching down in the middle of SpaceX’s designated landing pad, the booster made an unscheduled plop into the Atlantic Ocean, just off the Florida coast.

Video footage shared shortly after the incident shows the booster spinning out of control as it headed towards land.

Engines stabilized rocket spin just in time, enabling an intact landing in water! Ships en route to rescue Falcon. pic.twitter.com/O3h8eCgGJ7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2018

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