Since childhood, I'm driven by obsession with truth, says Musk in TED talk

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said Thursday that from a young age he had been driven by an “obsession with truth.” In the same interview, though, onstage at the 2022 TED Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, he tried to bend truth toward his own favourable interpretation and recast moments from his own personal history.

In a nearly hourlong interview, Musk publicly displayed what some have called his “reality distortion field,” a “Star Trek” inspired term used to describe how successful business leaders like Apple’s Steve Jobs were able to convince workers that seemingly impossible visions could be realized. At Tesla and SpaceX, Musk’s reality distortion field has been lionized as a major reason his companies have succeeded in mainstreaming electric vehicles and privatizing space launches.

Also Read | Twitter CEO tells employees company not 'held hostage' by Musk offer

On Thursday, a public audience got to see Musk’s reality distortion field in full effect. In a video interview shown before the live discussion, he said this year would be when his company’s vehicles achieved full self-driving capabilities. That followed a 2016 prediction that a Tesla would be able to drive across the country on its own within two years, and a statement in 2019 that he was “certain” his cars would be fully autonomous by the end of that year.

During the live interview, with Chris Anderson, the head of TED, Musk used some of his time to relitigate the founding of Tesla, which has been a sore spot for the world’s richest human. For years, Musk has tried to dispel the notion that he is not a co-founder of the company even though he was not part of Tesla at its incorporation in 2003 and became involved with the company only by investing in it the next year. In 2009, Tesla’s first CEO, Martin Eberhard, settled a lawsuit with Tesla and stipulated there were five co-founders of the company, including Musk.

“A false narrative has been created by one of the other co-founders, Martin Eberhard, and I don’t want to get into the nastiness here, but I didn’t invest in an existing company,” Musk said at TED. “We created a company.”

He also took aim at the Securities and Exchange Commission as he revisited his 2018 attempt to take Tesla private. That episode, in which Musk tweeted that he had “funding secured” despite not having such financing, led to an SEC investigation and lawsuit. He settled the case in 2018 by paying a $20 million fine and stepping down as chairman of the company.

On Thursday, he pushed to recast that recent history, claiming that he had been forced to concede to the SEC because of Tesla’s “precarious financial situation” and pressure from banks providing working capital.

“The SEC knew funding was secured, but they pursued an active public investigation nonetheless,” Musk said, adding: “I was forced to admit that I lied to save Tesla’s life, and that’s the only reason.”

He’s also fighting that settlement in court. Last month, Musk’s lawyers asked a federal judge to end a consent decree he signed with the SEC as part of his 2018 settlement.

“I would never lie to shareholders,” Musk wrote in the legal filing. “I entered into the consent decree for the survival of Tesla, for the sake of its shareholders.”

Check out the latest videos from DH: