Elon Musk: "It's absurd that Tesla is still alive"

eIn his first interview, after his electric car manufacturer Tesla made a profit for the first time in years, Lon Musk said the critical phase was over. "Tesla is not watching death anymore," he said in the podcast "Recode Decode" by American journalist Kara Swisher. "I think we are on the mountain."

After mbadive difficulties in starting the production of the middle clbad car, Model 3, from July to September, Tesla has made a surprisingly high profit of more than $ 311 million (273 million euros). Musk expects the company to earn money sustainably in the electric car sector in the future. In September, Spitz reported that this situation was over. Tesla will probably never need additional capital, all future investments could be financed by their own profits.

Musk said that it was "extremely difficult to survive as a car manufacturer". All attempts made in recent years to found a new manufacturer had failed. "It's absurd that Tesla is still alive – absurd," said Musk. "Tesla should not die because Tesla is extremely important for the future of sustainable mobility." Only the success of Tesla has also led other manufacturers to electric mobility.

"You must go crazy if you work 120 hours"

The only possible success was that everyone at Tesla worked 100 hours a week. He acknowledged that this workload had also overburdened him. "This year has been incredibly painful, the worst year of my career," said Musk. He now works between 80 and 90 hours a week, but there have also been weeks with 120 hours of work this year.

"You have to go a little crazy if you work 120 hours a week," he admitted, recognizing that congestion had also made him wrong. He also included the announcement to remove Tesla from the stock market, which he had aired via Twitter and then had to pull out. In comparison with the stock market supervisor, Musk not only had to pay a fine, but also yielded as chairman of Tesla's board of directors.

He has faced some of the problems of recent months, said Musk. "My brother said that if you hurt yourself, can not you at least turn the knife in the wound?" He said. He does not do it intentionally, but because he is under tremendous pressure and does not sleep much.

Musk did not want to give up his media criticism, which he had often expressed in recent months via Twitter, but also in the presentation of the balance sheets. "The prestige of the media has fallen sharply for me, and the amount of lies written is incredible," he said.

Journalists who write bad things are "terrible people". "Take this to heart and improve it," he said. He himself is not particularly sensitive to criticism. Nevertheless, he regrets verbal attacks against journalists. "I probably should not have attacked journalists," Musk admitted at the end of the conversation.

Tesla should be unbadailable in an autonomous car

At least on Twitter, it will attack in the future probably less criticism. Musk confirmed that the settlement with the Exchange's supervision also included requirements for its use of the short message service. According to Musk, he should no longer tweet about Tesla during the stock market hours, "if that would trigger a substantial price move".

However, you do not have to worry that Musk only communicates in the meantime, or not at all. With regard to autonomous driving, the boss of Tesla had the usual to be confident: "I do not think that any competitor is even close to Tesla when it 's safe. is to develop a basic solution for autonomous cars. " Although it can not completely exclude that it is still somewhere to give a very secretive development project. "I would be very surprised if another automaker overtook Tesla in the autonomous car," he said.

The Tesla autopilot badistance system should be able to be driven anywhere in 2019, said Musk. At most, he sees in Google's branch for autonomous driving, Waymo, a serious competitor. He does not trust the clbadic manufacturers. "They are just not good with software and it's a software problem." Manufacturers such as BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen are currently developing autonomous driving functions that they want to market in the coming years.