There’s so much to dig into on this one. First off, just to state my own bias upfront, I’m not a fan of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). Literally just a few days ago I wrote about on…
Top Gear did fake a Tesla running out of battery though... so I can see why they'd be pissed about that. They started pushing it to the garage when it had 20% battery remaining. And said "they never claimed it ran out of battery". I think many viewers got a different impression.
The initial case was about the roadster likely having a 55 mile range on a track. Which was judged to be true.
Musk was pissed about Top Gear pointing it out, but it wasn't a lie.
The judge concluded that no reasonable viewer would equate range on a track, with range in normal daily driving.
I think many viewers got a different impression.
We didn't. That's a lie told by Tesla, who misrepresented what the case was actually about, and was parrotted by the tesla cult.
I watched it at the time. It was clearly a dramatisation to illustrate a point, and no viewer would have reasonably thought otherwise.
They correctly pointed out the range would be low on a track. They illustrated this by showing the car run out of battery. That's how entertainment shows work.
That's not just my opinion, but the opinion of the judge after Musk sued twice, and lost twice.
And you have to remember that UK libel laws notoriously favour the plaintiff:
So much so, that the US introduced a law to make English judgements unenforceable and the law was eventually changed exactly because it was unbalanced.
Of course, if you go to tesla's website, you'll still find an article about the 55 mile range on a track being incorrect.
Unsurprisingly, that's a lie. As it turns out, they lied about the range of their cars then, and they're still doing it now:
Musk was just the moneybag. If he was replaced by someone else with money (..or just a literal moneybag) I would bet my bank account SpaceX would be just as, if not more, successful.
That's the only thing you could really credit Elon for, I think. Getting the money to operate SpaceX. But that's more of an indictment of the economic system than anything else.
SpaceX is successfull because they not only have competent engineers but are also good at managing Musk by distracting him and steering him away from critical stuff (or personal he might randomly fire).
Def because of him. Musk is still a smart guy but has just become arrogant and is out of his league with twitter. And I guess his ego is too large now to accept he handled any of it badly so he just keeps plowing forward, duct taping around...
The open question is, is the fact that twitter is still running fairly well because it is so well engineered and resilient, or is musk actually just duct taping well?