Steve Wozniak criticizes Elon Musk and Tesla for “dishonesty”, says they robbed him and his family
What happened now? People’s opinion about Elon Musk is divided into those who love him and those who hate the billionaire. It seems that Steve Wozniak is closer to the second camp. The Apple co-founder said that Musk and Tesla “robbed” his family of money over false claims about EV’s autonomous driving technology. “A lot of honesty disappears when you look at Elon Musk and Tesla,” Wozniak said.
In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday, Wozniak told Andrew Ross Sorkin that Musk is a lot like his late friend and colleague, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, although he doesn’t believe the Tesla boss is as big as Jobs when he comes to entrepreneurship. “I classify them as communicative and willing to be seen as important and like a cult leader,” Wozniak said.
“Elon Musk and Steve Jobs are very similar, and I don’t like to say it,” says Apple co-founder. @stevewoz. “They both want to be seen as important people and to be like a cult leader. But much of the honesty disappears when you look at @elonmusk And $TSLA.” pic.twitter.com/A5YUt5ZNIs
— Scream Box (@SquawkCNBC) February 9, 2023
“Many people will follow them, no matter what they say, and they stop being condemned. Many cults are like that,” Wozniak added, stressing that he considers it a bad thing to do.
Wozniak said that his life was based on absolute honesty, a description that he believes cannot be applied to Musk. “A lot of honesty disappears when you look at Elon Musk and Tesla,” Wozniak said. “They robbed my family, me and my wife, so much money […] with the things they said we really believed they were going to be real.”
Wozniak was referring to the Tesla car he redesigned in 2016, when Tesla first offered full autonomous driving (FSD) in beta, after Musk said the car would be able to drive around the country on its own by the end of this year.
Wozniak and his wife then spent $50,000 to upgrade another vehicle with eight cameras and additional sensors, which the CEO says will allow him to drive coast to coast without driver intervention by the end of 2017. far from what Musk promised. “He makes mistakes all the time,” he said. “It’s a terrible, frightening experience.”
Wozniak, who once said he may have been Patient Zero from a Covid-19 infection in the US, said he admires some of the things about Musk, including how he helped speed up the transition away from fossil fuel cars. , to electric vehicles in the automotive industry. but he doesn’t admire his misleading and dishonest marketing chatter. Did Jobs, who had not the best reputation, fall into the same category?
“Steve Jobs really wasn’t that dishonest. […] he just had a way of grabbing you,” Wozniak said. “But it wasn’t really that unfair. You didn’t buy something thinking you’d get an A, but you didn’t get it.”
It sounds as if Wozniak was one of the many customers drawn in by a 2016 Tesla ad that showcased its Autopilot driver assistance system, including the ability to stop at a red traffic light and pull away when it turns green. Ashok Elluswami, Tesla’s director of software for Autopilot, admitted last month that the video was staged.
In 2018, Tesla settled a class-action lawsuit filed by customers who claimed that its semi-autonomous driver assistance system was “virtually unusable and clearly dangerous.”
