‘A lot of honesty disappears when you look at Musk and Tesla’: Apple co-founder slams billionaire
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‘A lot of honesty disappears when you look at Elon Musk and Tesla’: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak claims billionaire’s electric vehicle company ROBBING customers after spending ‘thousands’ on his self-driving technology that ‘makes mistakes’ all the time”
- Steve Wozniak, 72, co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Jobs, and was asked Thursday on CNBC’s Squawk Box if Jobs and Elon Musk were alike.
- Wozniak said he thought Jobs and Musk were “cult leaders,” saying he disliked Musk because he felt he was “dishonest.”
- The tech entrepreneur said he was angered by Musk’s frequently changing deadlines for Tesla, saying he felt he had been ripped off buying the electric vehicle.
Elon Musk has been accused of “dishonesty” by a Silicon Valley legend, who said he was not deeply impressed by the South African-born billionaire’s inability to deliver on the promises he made with Tesla.
Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs in 1976, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday that he felt cheated by Tesla.
A 2016 video that Tesla used to promote its self-driving technology was staged to show capabilities like stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light that the system did not have, according to testimony from a senior engineer. The testimony was part of a July statement taken as evidence in a lawsuit against Tesla over a fatal accident in 2018 involving a former Apple engineer.
Wozniak said he wasn’t impressed by the self-driving feature.
“He makes mistakes all the time,” he said. It is a horrible and terrifying experience.
The engineer said he didn’t like Musk’s attitude.
Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, said he was not impressed with Elon Musk.
Wozniak said Musk, pictured at a Tesla site in Berlin in September 2020, had promised too much with the cars.
“My life has been based on total honesty,” he said.
‘Everything you say is totally honest. You don’t hide things, you don’t describe things, you don’t make things up to make yourself look better.
“A lot of honesty disappears when you look at Elon Musk and Tesla.”
Wozniak, who married his fourth wife, Janet Hill, in 2008, said believing Musk’s promises cost him and his family dearly.
“My family, me and my wife, have been robbed of so much money that I couldn’t tell you, with things that they said that we really believed to be true.”
Wozniak, when asked if he thought Musk and Jobs were similar, said they were both leaders of “a cult,” which he considered dangerous.
In 2019, Musk claimed that Teslas would become “robotaxis” so advanced that their owners “could go to sleep” in the vehicle while driving.
Musk is seen at the launch of the Tesla Model S in October 2011
Wozniak is seen driving his Tesla: says the company has been a disappointment
The billionaire told customers they could earn around $30,000 a year if they allowed their Teslas to be used as part of a fleet of robotaxis.
As of now, customers in the US and Canada who paid an extra $15,000 have a self-driving beta, but must be behind the wheel.
“Elon Musk said it would be driven across the country at the end of 2016,” Wozniak added.
In October, Reuters reported that Tesla was under criminal investigation for claims that its electric vehicles could drive themselves.
The Justice Department began investigating Tesla in 2021 after more than a dozen accidents involving the vehicle’s Autopilot feature. Some of those accidents were fatal.
Last week, Tesla revealed that the federal government sought documents related to its Full Self-Driving and Autopilot driver assistance systems.