Just a week ago, journalist Walter Isaacson published the landmark biography of the richest and most powerful man in the world: Elon Musk. This extensive work allows you to learn a lot about the boss of Tesla, from his outbursts to his darkest and most disturbing sides.
Since September 12, 2023, we can discover the event biography of Elon Musk in bookstores. Signed by the American journalist Walter Isaacson, this long work is the fruit of two years of interviews with the billionaire obviously, but also with his family, his close friends, his entourage and his collaborators.
The Tesla boss surprisingly decided to play fair with Isaacson, giving him full access to personal and professional emails, SMS messages, etc. The result is a punchy biography, which paints a complex portrait of the new leader of Twitter by addressing its successes, its failures, its outbursts and its most sickly and dangerous behaviors.
Don’t touch Autopilot
The opportunity to discover in particular how Elon Musk wanted to spy on Tesla owners… As you may know, Tesla’s self-driving system is at the center of several federal investigations after several recorded collisions between Teslas running Autopilot and emergency vehicles.
The NHTSA, the American federal agency in charge of road safety, has been investigating the safety and reliability of Autopilot since August 2021. In February 2023, the American Department of Justice decided to launch investigations into the Autopilot and FSD, the manufacturer’s two autonomous driving technologies.
Remember that in many of these incidents, the responsibility of Autopilot has been systematically dismissed for the benefit of that of the driver. Although Tesla constantly reminds that its system requires the user’s perpetual attention, several studies have proven a clear reduction in drivers’ attention once Autopilot is activated.
Elon Musk wanted to use cameras to spy on drivers
Without surprise, this bad press wrongly made against Autopilot annoys Elon Musk. As his biography tells us, the billionaire had his own idea for rehabilitate the reputation of its technology and win the trials involving it: use the cameras installed in the passenger compartment of Teslas to spy on users in the event of an accident.
The icing on the cake was that Elon Musk obviously didn’t care whether or not he had the drivers’ agreement. “Musk was convinced that most accidents were caused by bad drivers rather than bad software. In a meeting, he suggested using data collected by the car’s cameras – one of which is inside the car and focused on the driver – to prove driver responsibility. says Walter Isaacson.
The journalist continues: “One of the women at the table objected to the idea. “We went back and forth with the privacy team,” she said. Next comes a lunar declaration from the billionaire, who seems to discover the existence of a division dedicated to protecting user privacy : “I don’t even know who they are. They are so private that you never know who they are”. As a reminder, Elon Musk was not the only one to have these voyeuristic desires. According to an article published by Reuters in April 2023, several Tesla employees secretly watched intimate videos recorded by Tesla car cameras.
Source: Electrek
