Connect with us

News

Tesla’s Elon Musk makes surprise appearance at VW executive conference

(Credit: VW)

Published

on

The Elon Musk and Herbert Diess budding bromance seems to be going strong, with the Tesla CEO making a surprise appearance at the Volkswagen managers’ 2021 Leadership Summit in Alpbach, Austria.

Elon Musk’s attendance at the VW Group gathering reveals Diess and the Tesla CEO’s deep respect for each other. Musk’s appearance also shows that Diess is willing to change his mindset, something that he believes everyone at Volkswagen AG needs to go through to compete with new automakers. 

“We need a new mindset at Volkswagen AG to take on the new competition!” posted Herbert Diess on LinkedIn. “After three days with 200 top managers from the world, I am confident: We have everything we need to tackle the challenges. Right strategy, right competencies, right management team. We can do it—but we have to deliver now.”

It seems like Diess invited Elon Musk to speak at the summit to learn from Tesla’s CEO and gain some perspective. According to Handelsblatt, Diess asked Musk why Tesla was so nimble compared to its rivals. 

The Tesla CEO replied that it came down to his management style and how he thought of himself. Musk shared that he perceived himself as an engineer, first and foremost, one that has an eye for supply chains, logistics, and production. 

Musk may have given Diess and VW managers some encouraging words at the meeting as well, assuring everyone that they were moving in the right direction. 

Advertisement
-

“As a surprise guest [Elon Musk] joined us for a video talk in the evening. Happy to hear that even our strongest competitor thinks that we will succeed in the transition if we drive the transformation with full power,” Diess noted.

VW’s Electric Future

In a LinkedIn post, Diess mentioned VW Group’s headquarters in Wolfsburg and Project Trinity. The Wolfsburg plant has long been one of VW’s key facilities. Project Trinity is VW’s upcoming electric sedan project, and it will be built in the Wolfsburg plant. The company aims to start Project Trinity production at Wolfsburg by 2026. 

According to VW CEO Ralf Ralf Brandstätter, Project Trinity is like the point of “crystallization” for the legacy OEM’s ACCELERATE strategy. VW Group plans to “accelerate” its transformation into a software-driven mobility provider, and Project Trinity seems to be an integral part of the company’s evolution. 

VW and Tesla’s Healthy Competition

Diess noted that Project Trinity could revolutionize the company. He observed that Trinity could help Volkswagen compete with Tesla Giga Berlin in Grünheide, highlighting that Tesla Giga Berlin “will build cars with an impressive speed and productivity.”

At Giga Fest, a poster stated that Giga Berlin aims to produce one car body every 45 seconds, hinting at how many cars Giga Berlin could make in the future. The sign did not indicate whether the goal was short-term or long-term. 

However, it has been reiterated repeatedly that one of Tesla’s early goals for Giga Berlin is to produce 500,000 vehicles a year. Since Giga Berlin’s goal has been made public, Volkswagen Group has a clear EV production goal to compete with Tesla in Grünheide. 

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101

Advertisement
-

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Amazon shuts out Elon Musk’s Grok Bot so he may just build his own rival store

Musk promises SpaceX will cover Grok Bot purchase errors, tells users to shop beyond Amazon.

Published

on

By

Concept rendering showing a silhouette of Elon Musk, arms folded, overlooking a sprawling modern Amazon warehouse via Grok
Concept rendering showing a silhouette of Elon Musk, arms folded, overlooking a sprawling modern Amazon warehouse via Grok

Elon Musk said SpaceX will reimburse users if Grok Bot botches a purchase or leaks their card details. A few hours later he was telling users to take their shopping elsewhere after Amazon shut the agent out.

The first post was a reply to an X user who said Grok Bot booked him a flight after he sent a photo of his credit card. “This works well,” Musk wrote. “If Grok @Bot makes a mistake with a purchase or leaks your card (never happened yet), SpaceX will make you whole,” said Musk.

The second came after another user posted the error his Grok Bot hit on Amazon: “Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed.” The user said his bots can no longer order from the site. Musk answered, “Just ask Grok @Bot to buy what you want someplace else and get a better deal. There are far more purchasing websites than just Amazon!” He later added, “Maybe we should start a competitor to Amazon,” a possible hint at an X shopping service.

The Amazon block did not start Thursday. A reply to Musk on October 10 said Amazon was blocking the bot, and Musk responded that Grok would find another way, then showed an order it placed on Lego’s website.

The latest reimbursement promise builds on late August when Musk told a Tesla investor weighing whether to give Grok Bot access to his bank accounts, “If Grok Bot messes up, we will make you whole,” as Teslarati covered when SpaceXAI added its Finance integration. That promise goes further than the company’s consumer terms, which make users responsible for what their agents do and generally cap liability at the greater of fees paid or $100. Neither Thursday post says those terms have changed, so for now it remains a statement on X rather than a published policy.

The two posts matter to Tesla owners because Grok Bot is no longer limited to a phone. Tesla brought it into its vehicles on September 22, and it is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet, as noted when Teslarati looked at why Grok Bot may be the Cybercab’s real advantage. A rider who asks for groceries or a coffee order is relying on retailers that let the agent in. Amazon has now said it will not, and Musk’s answer is to route around it.

Amazon has not commented publicly on the block in the posts Teslarati reviewed, and it is unclear whether Musk will follow through on a rival store.

So, how many of you do the vast majority of shopping on Amazon and hate that you do? Comment and let us know your thoughts!

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk says Tesla’s Roadster demo could be a bang, quite literally

Musk says tonight’s Roadster demo will be a banger, maybe literally. The clues add up.

Published

on

By

tesla roadster elon musk flying

Elon Musk spent Wednesday and Thursday stacking teases on top of Tesla’s Roadster event, and the wording is getting harder to read as routine hype. Tesla streams the unveil tonight at 7:55 p.m. Central on X. Musk has called it “a candidate for greatest product demo of all time,” then added that “this demo will be a BANGER, probably metaphorically, though some chance literally.”

The “some chance literally” part is the line to watch. The Roadster has been tied to a SpaceX option package since 2018, and as we reported when the date was announced, the system is reportedly codenamed A71 and uses cold gas thrusters fed by a composite overwrapped pressure vessel, the same tank design SpaceX uses on Falcon 9. Musk has said a thruster equipped car could reach 60 mph in about 1.1 seconds. Cold gas thrusters firing at full output are loud, and reports ahead of the event say the car will be unmanned with spectators kept several hundred yards back. A literal bang could simply mean a demonstration that sounds like one, though it is also an admission that something could go wrong on stage.

Then there is “Timing is everything,” which Musk posted a day earlier. Stocktwits noted that 7:55 p.m. is 19:55 on a 24 hour clock, which echoes 1955, the year Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future. Musk has made that connection before. In 2019 he replied to an animation of a flying DeLorean by saying the new Roadster “will actually do something like this.” Nothing from Tesla confirms the movie reference, but the stream time was chosen by someone, and Tesla has not been shy about this kind of wink.

Also, Tesla said it moved the event because it “can only be held outdoors,” and Musk then wrote that the demo was postponed “due to high winds,” as Teslarati covered at the time. A car running a standing start in front of a crowd shrugs off wind. A car that leaves the ground does not. The venue near SpaceX’s McGregor test site and the FAA airspace closures reported around the original date point the same way, though we also noted the delay could be a plain safety precaution. Musk has also described the new Roadster as “beyond movies, beyond imagination, beyond human, yet still made by humans on Earth.”

The only official figures remain the 2017 ones: 620 miles of range, a top speed above 250 mph, a 1.9 second 0 to 60 time, and prices of $200,000 for the base car and $250,000 for the Founders Series. Production is expected at Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028. Tesla has said the event will cover pricing, specifications and production targets, and its livestream preview has the full rundown. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, so whatever lands tonight will be fresh going into that call. We will have live coverage as soon as the stream starts.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk breaks his silence on the Starlink impact to Ukraine drones

Musk says the US military and president set Starshield limits, not SpaceX, amid Ukraine complaints.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk says the speed limit cutting out Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals is not SpaceX’s decision. In a post on X Wednesday, Musk wrote that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” He added that Starlink is a commercial service limited to civilian or defensive activities and “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”

He was replying to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, who had thanked Musk for restoring connectivity at speeds up to 160 km/h and said removing the Starshield limit entirely is “now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”

The complaint started Tuesday night, when Ukrainian officials said military terminals began losing service above roughly 100 mph. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said the defense forces got no warning and several missions were disrupted, as Teslarati reported earlier Wednesday. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at speeds well below the limit, which made drones harder to control. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, asked Musk on X whether he is “playing politics with your products again.”

That is why the Starlink and Starshield distinction matters. SpaceX introduced Starshield in 2022 as the government version of Starlink, with an initial focus on Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. It won a Space Force contract in 2023 with a $70 million ceiling. In December 2024, the Pentagon moved Ukraine’s terminals onto Starshield, covering about 3,000 units across two contracts. Ukraine’s military connections therefore run through a service that Musk now says sits under Washington’s control.

SpaceX pitches subscription model for Trump’s Golden Dome

While Musk’s post describes who holds authority, it does not infer that anyone ordered the limit, and neither SpaceX nor the US government has confirmed who set it. Ukrainian officials have pointed to the timing, which follows President Trump’s push for an energy ceasefire and Musk’s Saturday post that “Zelensky has gone too far.” The BBC noted Trump denied threatening to restrict intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and no evidence has been presented that Washington requested the cap.

The episode also revives a promise from 2025. After Poland accused him of threatening Ukraine’s access, Musk said Starlink “will never turn off its terminals” and would not be used as a bargaining chip. Poland has since supplied more than 29,000 terminals to Ukraine. Teslarati also covered Kyiv’s search for Starlink alternatives in 2025, and the latest dispute gives that search new urgency.

Continue Reading