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Tesla’s ventilator donations are being used to provoke Elon Musk into another controversy
During a global pandemic, an optimist would hope that people would work together to help those in need out of the common good. A pessimist would suggest that such circumstances would bring out the worst in people instead. Recent developments in the media coverage of Elon Musk and Tesla’s ventilator donations suggest that the pessimist is right. At times like these, there are entities who choose to provoke people that are willing to help–all for the sake of controversy.
Elon Musk is no stranger to controversy, both self-inflicted or otherwise. Over the past years, Musk has butted heads with several entities, from regulators like the SEC to journalists who tend to cover Tesla with pervading negative slant. Some of these bouts have resulted in a lot of pain for Musk and even Tesla shareholders. An example of this is Musk’s spat with British caver Vern Unsworth, whose defamation case against the CEO over comments following the Thailand cave rescue triggered some TSLA stock swings and extensive coverage from multiple premier news outlets.
Musk has a strong tendency to correct misleading reports. Take CNN’s recent coverage of Tesla’s ventilator donations, for example. The news outlet published a report alleging that no ventilators have reached CA hospitals despite Musk’s commitment to do so. Musk then took it upon himself to correct the report, showing messages between Tesla and the medical professionals from the state communicating about the donated machines and their use.
This, of course, triggered even more staff from CNN to double down, alleging that the non-invasive ventilators donated by Tesla weren’t ventilators at all, despite medical professionals stating that the machines are invaluable for non-critical coronavirus cases. The BiBAPs and CPAPs donated by Tesla could even be retrofitted using a simple modification to work for critical cases. Tesla has also started delivering actual invasive ventilators to hospitals, on top of the company’s efforts to develop its own ventilator using Model 3 parts.
Anyone with an iota of sense would see that Tesla and Musk are pretty much doing what they can to address the needs of medical professionals as much as possible. Are the BiBAPs and CPAP’s donated by Musk useful in the battle against the coronavirus? Medical professionals, government officials, and CEOs of actual ventilator makers would agree. Can the machines be modified to work for more severe cases? The doctors at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York say it’s actually pretty simple to do so. With this in mind, it seems like a no-brainer to conclude that the machines Tesla donated are indeed helping in the battle against the ongoing pandemic.
This point was lost entirely in critical articles that have been published about Musk and Tesla’s donations from outlets such as CNN. One who is unfamiliar with the events that led up to Musk’s recent Twitter interactions would likely think that the Tesla CEO brazenly lied when he committed to donating free ventilators, instead giving away cheap machines that are useless against the C-19 virus. Critics would even refuse to acknowledge non-invasive machines as actual ventilators, despite authorities such as John Hopkins listing them as such.
A key thesis against Musk alleges that he lied about ventilator donations to get some free PR and goodwill. This does not hold water, as Tesla and Musk already receive an insane amount of media coverage, and the company is scrutinized consistently by the media and critics from Wall Street. Thus, the idea of Musk wanting more media coverage to stroke his ego does not seem to make sense, considering that he and his companies actually get a little bit too much coverage. With this in mind, it appears that CNN’s recent reports about Tesla’s ventilator donations, as well as the succeeding tweets from the media outlet’s staff doubling down on their narrative, are designed to do one thing. They are posted to provoke Musk, until such a time when he actually responds with something concretely controversial.
Something similar has happened before. Mention Musk’s name with the Thai cave rescue and many will likely remember the CEO’s incendiary comments against British caver Vern Unsworth. A popular narrative for the event also alleges that Musk stuck his nose into the rescue without prompting so he can get free PR, and that he “attacked” the caver just because he wanted to. The fact that Musk was invited to help, that his team was in close communication with rescuers, and that the caver initiated the verbal spat, are largely forgotten. These experiences, as painful as they may be, must now stand as a huge lesson to Elon Musk.
Musk is no stranger to controversies with the media, and having gone through significant pains over the years because of them, he must handle the ongoing attempts to provoke him with extreme caution. At this point, Musk’s critics (and apparently, CNN staff) are practically salivating at the prospect of the CEO firing off a tweet that can be interpreted as a direct act of aggression against the news outlet or any of its staff. So far, Musk’s responses have been sarcastic, and that’s fine and true to his personality. But the Tesla CEO must be aware that he is not playing a fair game here. Every point of syntax and semantics can and will be exploited to fit a narrative, even if it means twisting the context of a statement. With this in mind, Musk’s best strategy for now is to proceed with a ton of caution, or complete silence.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Elon Musk flew under the radar with his recent purchase of a $1 billion energy company, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents.
Transaction number 202612350 listed Tesla and SpaceX frontman Elon Musk as the acquiring party and CF APR Super Holdings LLC as the seller, with New APR Energy, LLC as the acquired entity. The deal, which closed without public announcement, came to light on May 14.
BREAKING: Elon Musk acquires Jacksonville power company APR Energy in a deal valued at more than $1,000,000,000.00.
— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) July 15, 2026
Analysts inferred the deal’s scale from minority stakeholder disclosures, including one report of a 5 percent interest sold for approximately $50.4 million. Fortress Investment Group had purchased APR’s assets in late 2024, rebranded the operation as New APR Energy, and subsequently transferred ownership to Musk.
APR Energy specializes in rapidly deployable power infrastructure. The company maintains one of the world’s largest fleets of mobile gas and diesel turbines, with more than 1.1 gigawatts of generation capacity. Its modular units, which are often trailer-mounted, enable turnkey installations ranging from 20 MW to over 500 MW.
APR provides full engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance services for behind-the-meter power plants, serving everything from data centers, utilities, and industrial clients.
The firm has expanded aggressively to meet surging demand, recently adding turbines and deploying over 100 MW for a major AI hyperscaler. Its solutions bridge critical gaps where grid interconnections face delays of two to five years, according to Yahoo.
The acquisition means something more for Musk. As he continues to expand projects in artificial intelligence, especially xAI, his AI venture, there is a greater need to supply energy-intensive supercomputing clusters, including the Colossus project, with what they need: reliable and high-capacity power.
Ownership of APR provides immediate access to flexible generation assets that can be deployed adjacent to data centers, reducing dependence on a strained infrastructure. It also complements Tesla’s energy storage business, so Musk will be able to pull from his own entities to address the rapid scaling demands of AI training and compute.
Tesla had a petition protesting a recall to fix a potential issue with 2017-2023 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles’ headlights was denied, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disagreed with the company’s opinion of things.
The recall covers approximately 19,917 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles built from 2017 to 2023. Tesla initially submitted a noncompliance report for the headlights on these vehicles on March 15, 2024. Tesla then petitioned for an exemption from the fix, which violated FMVSS No. 108 (40 CFR 571.108), arguing that the “noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety.
🚨 Tesla was denied a petition by the NHTSA to avoid a recall of 19,900 2017-2023 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
The NHTSA found that the vehicles’ headlights may exceed maximum lighting levels. Tesla argued it was inconsequential and did not require a recall. pic.twitter.com/m8Jmm1teLL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 16, 2026
The NHTSA disagreed, stating that Tesla’s conclusion that the headlights do not increase any risk was not an opinion it shared. The agency said it disagreed with Tesla’s assumption that glare is not increased to surrounding traffic. This issue could be highlighted even more in certain weather conditions.
Tesla will be required to remedy the issue, the NHTSA ruled:
“In consideration of the foregoing, NHTSA has decided that Tesla has not met its burden of persuasion that the subject FMVSS No. 108 noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety. Accordingly, Tesla’s petition is hereby denied, and Tesla is consequently obligated to provide notification of and free remedy for that noncompliance under 49 U.S.C. 30118 and 30120.”
The issue here appears to be the angle of the headlights and the brightness they emit during operation. The NHTSA report states that:
“Tesla’s headlamp supplier, Marelli Automotive Lighting, tested 25 right-hand and 25 left-hand lamps, and for this sample, found the maximum photometric intensity measured in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone was between 136.2 cd and 230.1 cd for the right-hand lamps and between 117.5 cd and 160.3 cd for the left-hand lamps. According to Tesla, these tests revealed that the photometric intensity of the right-hand and left-hand headlamp lower beam on the subject vehicles may measure as much as 230.1 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone, exceeding the maximum photometric intensity by 105.1 cd. Additionally, Tesla states that a left-hand lamp tested by a Transport Canada recognized laboratory measured a maximum of 171.27 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone. Despite these measurements exceeding the allowed photometric maximum of 125 cd, Tesla believes that the subject noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety.”
Tesla also argued at some points that the headlights had not been deemed responsible for any complaints, accidents, or injuries related to the noncompliance.
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Elon Musk secretly acquires $1B energy company to power the AI future
