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Tesla CEO Elon Musk hits back at drug use claims, calls publications ‘hypocrites’

Elon Musk showed a clean drug test, dispelling any rumors of drug use that came from unfounded reports from two large media outlets.

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Credit: Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has responded to a report from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, as both publications claimed he was abusing drugs while being involved with President Trump on both the campaign trail and while he was active within the administration after the election.

A bombshell report from the New York Times, published in late May, stated that Musk was regularly using things like ketamine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, and also stimulants like Adderall, during his time within the Trump administration.

The reports cited inside sources who claimed the Tesla and SpaceX frontman was using substances during his time with the government.

However, Musk published the results of a recent drug test performed at Fastest Labs of South Austin. They showed ‘Negative’ results across the board:

Musk was not done there.

He went on to say the New York Times “lies as easy as breathing. It’s normal for them.” He also said both the Times and Wall Street Journal reporters should also publish their own drug test results, stating, “They won’t, because those hypocrites are guilty as sin.”

Musk said years ago that he received ketamine prescriptions from doctors to treat depression. He said he had it “years ago and said so on X, so this is not even news.” He also said that ketamine “helps for getting out of dark mental holes, but haven’t taken it since then.”

Tesla fans and Musk enthusiasts have joked for days now that, if Musk were to be on drugs, other CEOs should also do them, considering his persistence on work-related projects, long hours, and commitment to his job.

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Musk has now proven that there has been no drug use with this test, and it seems as if the reports could have some sort of legal impact, although he has not said he will take any action.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

Tesla bear Guggenheim sees nearly 50% drop off in stock price in new note

Tesla bear Guggenheim does not see any upside in Robotaxi.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla bear Guggenheim is still among the biggest non-believers in the company’s overall mission and its devotion to solving self-driving.

In a new note to investors on Thursday, analyst Ronald Jewsikow reiterated his price target of $175, a nearly 50 percent drop off, with a ‘Sell’ rating, all based on skepticism regarding Tesla’s execution of the Robotaxi platform.

A few days ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company’s Robotaxi platform would open to the public in September, offering driverless rides to anyone in the Austin area within its geofence, which is roughly 90 square miles large.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirms Robotaxi is opening to the public: here’s when

However, Jewsikow’s skepticism regarding this timeline has to do with what’s going on inside of the vehicles. The analyst was willing to give props to Robotaxi, saying that Musk’s estimation of a September public launch would be a “key step” in offering the service to a broader population.

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Where Jewsikow’s real issue lies is with Tesla’s lack of transparency on the Safety Monitors, and how bulls are willing to overlook their importance.

Much of this bullish mentality comes from the fact that the Monitors are not sitting in the driver’s seat, and they don’t have anything to do with the overall operation of the vehicle.

Musk also said last month that reducing Safety Monitors could come “in a month or two.”

Instead, they’re just there to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Jewsikow said:

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“While safety drivers will remain, and no timeline has been provided for their removal, bulls have been willing to overlook the optics of safety drivers in TSLA vehicles, and we see no reason why that would change now.”

He also commented on Musk’s recent indication that Tesla was working on a 10x parameter count that could help make Full Self-Driving even more accurate. It could be one of the pieces to Tesla solving autonomy.

Jewsikow added:

“Perhaps most importantly for investors bullish on TSLA for the fleet of potential FSD-enabled vehicles today, the 10x higher parameter count will be able to run on the current generation of FSD hardware and inference compute.”

Elon Musk teases crazy new Tesla FSD model: here’s when it’s coming

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Tesla shares are down just about 2 percent today, trading at $332.47.

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Elon Musk says this essential Tesla Robotaxi feature will be here soon

Tesla will work to solve automatic parking at available Supercharger stalls with future updates.

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Credit: Tesla

Elon Musk reiterated that one feature, which is ultimately an essential part of the operation of the Tesla Robotaxi platform, will be here soon.

Tesla released a new video of its longest Full Self-Driving demo yesterday, showing off a zero-intervention drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The drive is roughly seven hours and 360 miles long, and not a single need for the driver to touch the wheel was recorded.

Tesla flexes its most impressive and longest Full Self-Driving demo yet

There was one question that was brought up by an owner that brings up an interesting point. Tesla still needs to solve the vehicle’s ability to pull into Superchargers automatically, something that does not currently have a high success rate, at least for the owner who got a response from CEO Elon Musk.

Musk assured him that a Tesla’s ability to pull into open parking spaces at Superchargers would be more reliable with future software updates. Owners can see how many and which exact stalls are available before traveling to a Supercharger, so Teslas should be able to identify these stalls and pull in automatically:

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This is a small part of what will be imperative for the charging experience when Robotaxi launches in the coming years. Tesla plans to enable customer-owned cars to potentially enter the Robotaxi fleet and become an autonomous ride-sharing vehicle by next year.

However, it still needs to figure out autonomous charging. There are two parts to that process: pulling into the spot and charging without human need to connect the Supercharger to the vehicle.

Tesla used to consider a robotic snake-arm charger for this, but it has talked about induction charging more recently. Wireless charging seems to be the route that Tesla plans to go, but it might take some time to resolve the energy loss issue and make it an efficient charging method.

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Tesla flexes Robotaxi wireless charging — autonomy from top to bottom

Tesla has said its wireless charging efficiency is “well above 90 percent.”

Nevertheless, Tesla is still working toward figuring out all of the edge cases of Robotaxi operation. Figuring out charging without the need of a human is just one part of the puzzle it still has yet to solve, but with its improvements over the past few years, there’s no doubt Tesla will find the missing piece.

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Elon Musk’s new $29B Tesla stock award gets strange synopsis from governance firm

Did CGI not realize that Tesla Shareholders supported Musk being paid not once, but twice?

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elon musk speaking
Credit: TED

Elon Musk was recently awarded around $29 billion in Tesla stock as the company’s Board of Directors is attempting to get its CEO paid after his original pay package was denied twice by the Delaware Chancery Court.

But a new and strange synopsis from the Corporate Governance Institute (CGI) says the award is potentially a strength move to “endorse the will of a powerful CEO.” The problem is, in the same sentence, the firm said the new award brings up a “question of whether the board exists to steward a company in the interests of all stakeholders.”

The problem with their new analysis of Musk’s pay package is that shareholders voted twice on Musk’s original pay package of $56 billion. They voted to give Musk that sum on two separate occasions.

Musk’s original $56 billion pay package was approved by shareholders twice; once in 2018 and once again last year. Last year’s vote was in response to Delaware Chancery Court Kathaleen McCormick’s decision to revoke the “unfathomable sum” from Musk.

Shareholders still showed support for Musk getting paid. Tesla said in its new award to the CEO that this is a way to give him compensation for the first time in seven years.

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CGI said in its note (via TipRanks):

“When a board builds its strategy around a single individual, it creates a concentration risk, not just operationally, but culturally and ethically. If that individual becomes a source of volatility, the company becomes fragile by design.”

What’s strange with this type of narrative is the fact that Tesla’s valuation has skyrocketed with Musk at the helm. Go back to 2020, and the stock is up over 200 percent. Since Musk’s $56 billion pay package was introduced in 2018, shares are up well over 1,000 percent.

Tesla engineer explains why Elon Musk deserves new pay package

Musk’s 2018 pay package was also not awarded to him without performance-based incentives. He was required to reach certain growth goals, all of which were accomplished through the launch of new vehicles and the advancements of its driver-assistance suites, like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.

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It is tough to agree with CGI’s perception of Musk’s new pay plan, especially as it is much less than what shareholders voted on twice. Musk deserves to be paid for his contributions to Tesla.

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