Elon Musk is often furious on Twitter, usually clapping back at negative comments or naysayers with memes or sarcastic riffs.
Bloomberg | Getty Images
But when it comes to insulting the technology and the work he’s done on his beloved Tesla vehicles, he won’t find anything funny about that.
One hapless Tesla owner, James Locke, took to Twitter to lament that the beta version of Tesla’s highly anticipated Full Self Driving (FSD) software was unreliable and had “a lot of work to go.”
Unfortunately I have to say that I still have to intervene to correct #FSDBeta 10.69 in my area. Still a lot of work to go.
I know this is probably not a popular opinion, but the focus on the “Chuck” complex on the left predates the needs of some more basic control issues.
— James Locke (@arctechinc) August 23, 2022
Locke went on to say in follow-up tweets that the software was having trouble getting into proper lanes, calling the recent price hikes for the software “premature” given the issues he noted.
Musk clapped back upon reading Locke’s less-than-great review of the software, explaining that it was “in limited release for a reason” before publicly scolding him.
“Please don’t ask to be included in early betas and then go complain,” Musk said bluntly.
But it didn’t stop there. Another follower of Musk asked him if he had snapped at Locke because he didn’t appreciate Musk’s hard work and urged him to apologize, but Musk didn’t want to.
“No. Let me make something clear: James contacted me directly to be included in *early* beta, that’s only ~1000 cars, mostly employees,” Musk stated:. “Early beta explicitly has issues, otherwise it would be rolled out on a large scale, so it’s wrong to publicly criticize something he’s asked for.”
Shortly after, he doubled down on another tweet.
“Criticism, public or private, is welcome after we move into broad beta,” He wrote. “Early beta has a lot of known issues. The reason we’re releasing it for a limited number of cars is to discover unknown issues.”
Earlier this week, Musk announced that Tesla’s FSD software would rise in price to $15,000 (versus $12,000) in North American markets.
The price increases will take effect for any order placed after September 5, while the original price will be honored for orders placed before September 5, but the priority will be lifted and thus delivered at a later date.
It is estimated that approximately 100,000 drivers are currently enrolled in the FSD 10.9 beta technology.
Tesla’s 3-for-1 stock split also took effect this week, with shareholders receiving an additional two stock dividends for every share they already own, the second time in history that the electric vehicle company has done so.
Since Thursday late in the morning, Tesla ran out 24% in a period of one year.
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