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Tesla has a misinformation problem, and silence may no longer be enough
During the first quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, stated that the company is hard at work cooperating with local authorities and agencies like the NTSB and the NHTSA to investigate a fatal Model S crash in Texas earlier this month. Moravy’s statements provided some new insights into the ongoing investigation, particularly when he mentioned that Tesla did a study to see how the company’s technologies operate in the area of the accident.
“We did a study with them over the past week to understand what happened in that particular crash. And what we’ve learned from that effort was that Autosteer did not and could not engage on the road condition that — as it was designed. Our adaptive cruise control only engages when a driver was buckled in about 5 miles per hour. And it only accelerated to 30 miles per hour with the distance before the car crashed,” he said.
A look at Moravy’s statements shows that Tesla’s adaptive cruise control could only accelerate to 30 mph in the distance that the ill-fated Model S covered before it smashed into a tree. This goes against initial reports stating that the vehicle had been involved in a high-speed crash. The state of the Model S when authorities found it also hinted that the car collided with the tree at speeds beyond 30 mph. Moravy’s statement was clear enough, but apparently, it was not clear enough for some — and it’s causing even US congressmen to become misinformed about the issue.
Despite early claims by #Tesla #ElonMusk, autopilot WAS engaged in tragic crash in The Woodlands.
We need answers. https://t.co/e3TQTRv72Z
— Kevin Brady (@RepKevinBrady) April 28, 2021
Misreporting Spreads Quickly
Rep. Kevin Brady recently shared an article on his Twitter page which featured Moravy’s statement from the Q1 earnings call. The only problem was that the article Brady shared misunderstood the Tesla executive’s statement, with the article alleging that “at least one Tesla Autopilot feature was active” during the fatal Tesla crash. This, of course, is completely inaccurate, and EV owners and Tesla Twitter pointed it out as such. Moravy, after all, was referring to a test that the company ran, not the findings of the investigation, which is still ongoing.
Unfortunately, the US congressman seemed unconvinced. Despite the wave of corrections from the EV community and Tesla owners, or just Twitter users who actually bothered to listen and read the Q1 earnings call transcript, Brady argued in a later tweet that the source of his information was Tesla itself. And this, in a lot of ways, brings up a can of worms for the electric car maker and its longtime supporters.
Uh…Tesla. (Read the article, Sparky)
— Kevin Brady (@RepKevinBrady) April 28, 2021
Misinformation must be corrected
This is not the first time that Tesla has found itself on the receiving end of inaccurate reporting. Tesla has always battled misinformation since its early days, from reports claiming that the Model S was vaporware to ones claiming that Giga Shanghai was just an empty shell where Model 3s from Fremont were being stored. But while most of the misreporting surrounding Tesla is now expected by those following the company, and while some of this misinformation is almost humorous — such as a usually-critical Tesla reporter arguing that the Powerwall does not exist because she has never seen one in person — some stories require a more active hand.
Granted, Elon Musk has made his stance clear on advertising, or, as the CEO noted on Twitter, “manipulating public opinion.” However, it is not too difficult to see that Tesla will be fighting an unnecessarily uphill battle against misinformation if it does not have a way to make the correct information public. Musk has also stated on Twitter that “I trust the people,” which is no surprise considering his optimism. However, people are also very easy to manipulate, especially if they are immersed, for the most part, in misinformation.
Other companies spend money on advertising & manipulating public opinion, Tesla focuses on the product.
I trust the people.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2021
Not-a-PR Team
If there is anything that the ongoing misinformation surrounding the tragic Texas crash has shown, it is that Tesla may need a better strategy than just staying silent until an inaccurate story dies. This does not have to come in the form of a dedicated PR team or advertisements either, as those are strategies that have worked for companies that are almost antithetical to Tesla. Either way, the EV community may find it advantageous if something could be done about the ongoing inaccurate reports and allegations being thrown against the company. Perhaps Tesla could find a solution that meets these needs while staying true to its out-of-the-box character.
Tesla is a creative company that is unorthodox and bold enough that it decided to build a vehicle assembly line in a sprung structure to meet its goals. With this in mind, there is a pretty good chance that Tesla could find a workaround for its misinformation problem. Before this could happen, of course, Tesla would first have to admit that something more than silence is needed to usher in the company towards new heights.
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Elon Musk
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a recent podcast interview that Tesla is not who Americans should look at to beat Chinese carmakers.
The comments have sparked quite a bit of outrage from Tesla fans on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
Farley said that Chinese automakers are better examples of how to beat competitors. He said (via the Rapid Response Podcast):
“If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla—they’ve been doing great—but they really don’t have an updated vehicle. The best in the business for us, cost-wise and competition-wise, supply chain, manufacturing expertise, and the I.P. in the vehicle, was really BYD. In this next cycle of EV customers in the U.S., they want pickups and utilities and all these different body styles. But they want them at $30,000, not $50,000. Like the first inning, they want them affordably.”
Despite Farley’s synopsis, it is worth mentioning that Tesla had the best-selling passenger vehicle in the world last year, and in China in March, as the Model Y continued its global dominance over other vehicles.
Musk responded to Farley’s comments by stating:
“This is before Supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.”
This is before supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026
Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.
Ford cancels all-electric F-150 Lightning, announces $19.5 billion in charges
Instead, Ford is “doubling down on its affordable” EVs and said it would pivot from its previous plans.
Reaction from Tesla fans was pretty much how you would expect. Many said they have lost a lot of respect for Farley after his comments; others believe he is the last CEO anyone should be taking advice on EVs from.
Nevertheless, Farley’s plans are bold and brash; many consider Tesla the most ideal company to replicate EV efforts from. It will be interesting to see if Ford can rebound from this big adjustment, and hopefully, Farley’s plans to replicate efforts from BYD work out the way he hopes.
Elon Musk
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
NASA awarded SpaceX a $175 million Mars rover contract while the White House proposes cutting the mission.
NASA just signed a $175.7 million contract with SpaceX to launch a Mars rover that the White House is simultaneously trying to defund. The contract, awarded on April 16, 2026, tasks SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with launching the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, no earlier than late 2028. It would mark the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars.
Under NASA’s Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation project, known as ROSA, the agency is providing braking engines for the rover’s descent stage, radioisotope heater units that use decaying plutonium to keep the rover warm on the Martian surface, additional electronics, and a mass spectrometer instrument, as noted by SpaceNews.
Those nuclear heating units are the reason an American rocket was required at all. U.S. export controls on radioisotope technology mean any payload carrying them must launch on a domestic vehicle, which narrowed the field to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Falcon Heavy’s pricing made it the practical choice.
SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket
Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 and has 11 launches to its record. The rocket has not flown since October 2024, when it sent NASA’s Europa Clipper toward Jupiter. The three-core design, built from modified Falcon 9 first stages, gives it the lift capacity needed for deep space planetary missions that a single Falcon 9 cannot reach.
The Rosalind Franklin rover has been sitting in storage in Europe for years. It was originally due to launch in 2022 as a joint mission with Russia, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended that partnership, leaving the rover built but stranded without a launch vehicle or landing hardware. NASA stepped back in through a 2024 agreement with ESA to rescue the mission. The rover is designed to drill up to two meters below the Martian surface in search of evidence of past life, a science objective no previous mission has attempted at that depth.
The contradiction at the center of this story is hard to ignore. The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal included no funding for ROSA and did not mention the mission at all in the detailed congressional justification document released April 3.
Musk has long argued that reaching Mars is not optional. “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.” Whether this particular mission survives Washington’s budget fight, the Falcon Heavy contract means SpaceX is now formally on record as the rocket that could get humanity’s next Mars science mission off the ground.
The timing of this contract carries extra weight given that SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC in early April and is targeting an IPO roadshow in the week of June 8. It would be the largest public offering in history.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to hold its Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday, and there are a lot of interesting things that are swirling around in terms of speculation from investors.
With the company’s executives, including CEO Elon Musk, answering a handful of questions that investors submit through the Say platform, fans want to know a lot of things about a lot of things.
These five questions come from Retail Investors, who are normal, everyday shareholders:
- When will we have the Optimus v3 reveal? When will Optimus production start, since we ended the Model S and Model X production earlier than mid-year? What’s the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year? What are the initial targeted skills?
- What milestones are you targeting for unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion beyond Austin this year, and how will that drive recurring revenue?
- How will Hardware 3 cars reach Unsupervised Full Self-Driving?
- When do you expect Unsupervised Full Self-Driving to reach customer cars?
- When will Robotaxi expand past its current limited rollout?
Additionally, these are currently the three questions that are slated to be answered by Institutional Firms, which also answer a handful of questions during the call:
- Now that FSD has been approved in the Netherlands and is expected to launch across Europe this summer, can you discuss your Robotaxi strategy for the region?
- What enabled you to finish the AI5 tapeout early and were there any changes to the original vision? Last week, Elon said AI5 will go into Optimus and the Supercomputer, but one month ago said it would go into the Robotaxi. Has AI5 been dropped from the vehicle roadmap?
- Given the recent NHTSA incident filings, can you update us on the Robotaxi safety data? If safety validation remains the primary bottleneck, why not deploy thousands of vehicles to accelerate the removal of the safety driver?
The questions range through every current Tesla project, including FSD expansion and Optimus. However, many of the answers we will get will likely be repetitive answers we’ve heard in the past.
This is especially pertinent when the questions about when Unsupervised FSD will reach customer cars: we know Musk will say that it will happen this year. Is Tesla capable of that? Maybe. But a more transparent answer that is more revealing of a true timeline would be appreciated.
Hardware 3 owners are anxiously awaiting the arrival of FSD v14 Lite, which was promised to them last year for a release sometime this year.
The Earnings Call is set to take place on Wednesday at market close.
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
