Latest / Best of Business / Sönke Iwersen: German investigative journalist on the new expose unveiling the inner workings of Tesla

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Sönke Iwersen: German investigative journalist on the new expose unveiling the inner workings of Tesla · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
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  Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: First up, that's we take a look at an expose
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  Speaker 2: on the inside workings of Elon Musks Tesla. Back in
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, investigative reporter Sunka Ivison received one hundred
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  Speaker 2: gigabytes of confidential leaked data from a whistleblower inside Tesla.
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  Speaker 2: The files detailed dangerous autopilot's software errors, a high number
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  Speaker 2: of workplace accidents in Tesla's factories, and a culture of
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  Speaker 2: fear within the company. Sonka's investigation is now a book
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  Speaker 2: called The Tesla Files. A Whistleblower, a Leak, and a
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  Speaker 2: Fight for Truth, The inside story of Musk's Empire. Sonka
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  Speaker 2: Iverson joins me, now, good morning, Thank you so much
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  Speaker 2: for being with us.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, good morning to you too.
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  Speaker 2: Tell me what were your first thoughts when a colleague
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  Speaker 2: called you and said he'd received a call from a
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  Speaker 2: confidential informer who claimed to have information about serious issues
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  Speaker 2: at Tesla.
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  Speaker 3: Wow. I thought it would be nice, but it sounded
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  Speaker 3: too good to be true because he also said that
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  Speaker 3: information was just lying around there and inside Tesla. I
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  Speaker 3: couldn't believe it. But of course, if somebody tells you
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  Speaker 3: he's working at there's a possibility to talk to somebody
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  Speaker 3: at working at Tesla, you have to take it. Because
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  Speaker 3: at the time Tesla was a complete black box and
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  Speaker 3: nobody inside Tesla talked to anybody outside. So a great
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  Speaker 3: stroke of luck.
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  Speaker 2: So in a situation like this, how do journal Let's
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  Speaker 2: go about checking the integrity of the informer and the
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  Speaker 2: data that you're being offered.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's a long process, it's At first, he didn't
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  Speaker 3: want to be The problem was he didn't want to
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  Speaker 3: be named. He didn't want to give me his name,
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  Speaker 3: didn't want me to know who he was, exactly where
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  Speaker 3: he was, all those things. But he kept sending data.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, one file and another file, not that twenty
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  Speaker 3: three thousand files that we actually came to possess after
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  Speaker 3: a few weeks. But it was so tantalizing the information.
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  Speaker 3: And at the same time I talked to my boss,
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  Speaker 3: I talked to our lawyers, and they said, well, you
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  Speaker 3: have to make sure that this is really You have
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  Speaker 3: to get over there and see him actually pull it
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  Speaker 3: out of the system, because that's what he claimed that
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  Speaker 3: anybody at Tesla could access this top secret information with
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  Speaker 3: no security at all, So we did so if after
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  Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, I finally convinced them and he
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  Speaker 3: gave me, so to speak, a display, a performance. He
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  Speaker 3: actually accessed the information in front of me, and it
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  Speaker 3: seemed all true that he could access the information if
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  Speaker 3: you type. He typed in the words Elon Musk, and
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  Speaker 3: hundreds of files came out, and I saw the while
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  Speaker 3: the bills of Elon Musk, bodyguards and anything I asked
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  Speaker 3: him to type in it all there was a receiption reception,
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  Speaker 3: and yeah, then the next day we copied the first
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  Speaker 3: nineteen gearbytes or so, and then we started verifying goals.
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  Speaker 2: So I imagine the thing that struck you first was
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  Speaker 2: the fact that you could actually access or that an
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  Speaker 2: employee could actually access all this information before you even
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  Speaker 2: got to kind of working out what was in the information.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that was the actual first implausibility, because I mean,
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  Speaker 3: Tesla was the most valuable car company in the world,
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  Speaker 3: by far, more valuable than Volkswagen and Mercedes and BMW
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  Speaker 3: and all those together. And Tesla or Masque specifically was
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  Speaker 3: so paranoid. He always said everybody else is out to
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  Speaker 3: get him, the oil industry, the diesel car industry, the politicians,
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  Speaker 3: the media. That's why everybody inside Tesla was told you
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  Speaker 3: must never talk to anybody outside. And when you start
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  Speaker 3: working at Tesla, or started at that time, even when
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  Speaker 3: you had your first interview before you before you had
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  Speaker 3: your first interview, you would have to sign an NDA.
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  Speaker 3: So the level of secrecy was completely, you know, out
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  Speaker 3: of this world. And then to have that peril to
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  Speaker 3: anybody can access any information at all, that didn't just
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  Speaker 3: didn't make sense.
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  Speaker 2: Did you get to the bottom of why a take
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  Speaker 2: billionaire was so relaxed with privacy, seeming to have little
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  Speaker 2: protection in place for such highly sensitive information.
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  Speaker 3: No, it's we never found out how, I mean, why
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  Speaker 3: they wouldn't talk to us. They still haven't answered a
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  Speaker 3: single of our questions. It's just perplexing. And later when
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  Speaker 3: when when when we start When you know, we went
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  Speaker 3: through looking all of the twenty three thousand, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: imagine how how long that takes. Twenty three thousand documents,
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  Speaker 3: And we had to get each and every one of
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  Speaker 3: them because we couldn't be sure what we were missing
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  Speaker 3: and we were afraid to miss anything. So but then
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  Speaker 3: we found actually that there had been warnings inside Tesla
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  Speaker 3: about this mistake, this completely unsecure the level of insecurity,
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  Speaker 3: and later the actually the guy who had warned about
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  Speaker 3: it was laid a fire for it. So it's just
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  Speaker 3: a very situation that didn't make any sense at all.
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  Speaker 2: What else did you find in the files that really
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  Speaker 2: caught your attention?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, once we got over the circle that why do
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  Speaker 3: we even have the information? We saw what really impressed
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  Speaker 3: us or just our brains went wow, how can this be?
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  Speaker 3: Was all the information about the autopilot, because there were
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  Speaker 3: thousands upon thousands of complaints of customers about their cars
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  Speaker 3: accelerating by themselves, breaking by themselves. That's called unintended acceleration.
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  Speaker 3: They even had terms for it, unattended acceleration and phantom breaking.
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  Speaker 3: That's when your car stops without you wanting it to.
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  Speaker 3: And that happened in tunnels, even in tunnels, I mean
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  Speaker 3: imagining your car stops in a tunnel. And so we
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  Speaker 3: were checking all what Elon Musquez said about the autopilot,
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  Speaker 3: and for the longest time he has promised or not
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  Speaker 3: not just from announced basically to the world how secure
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  Speaker 3: the autopilot, but that it was ninety percent better than
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  Speaker 3: any human driver, and that autonomous driving was a solved
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  Speaker 3: problem that goes back as far as twenty sixteen. And
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  Speaker 3: here we have all these complaints of customers. So obviously
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  Speaker 3: there was a big gap between words and reality.
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  Speaker 2: So clearly they did know that they had a problem.
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  Speaker 2: So how did they address that.
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  Speaker 3: They told the customers that it was their mistake. There
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  Speaker 3: was an actual actual come so to speak, not to
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  Speaker 3: put anything in writing. We have that. We have that
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  Speaker 3: bit of information or communication where it says, let's not
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  Speaker 3: put anything in writing here, do not speak on the
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  Speaker 3: on the voice boxes, mailboxes of anybody, don't need voice messages,
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  Speaker 3: don't send any letters, no emails. At one point there
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  Speaker 3: was a guy who wanted to kind of gather all
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  Speaker 3: the information about these autopilot's problems together, and he was
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  Speaker 3: told no, with the with the explanation that Tesla did
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  Speaker 3: not want to be open, so to speak, to subpoenas.
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  Speaker 3: If authorities would come in and subpoena them, they would
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  Speaker 3: find all the information. Then they didn't didn't want that,
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  Speaker 3: so it would be better not to if at all,
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  Speaker 3: if they needed they it would be spread all around
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  Speaker 3: the company, but not in one place. So, yeah, that's
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  Speaker 3: that was very perplexing.
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  Speaker 2: So would you say, from what you learned when you
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  Speaker 2: look at the way the autopilot developed over a series
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  Speaker 2: of cars and things, could you say that really they
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  Speaker 2: were developing it as they went, that maybe the expectation
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  Speaker 2: that was sold to a customer wasn't quite what they
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  Speaker 2: were actually providing.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, that that was what became clear to us. Elon
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  Speaker 3: Musk he is a Silicon Valley guy, and that is
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  Speaker 3: the Silicon value approach. You know, when you put out
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  Speaker 3: a game or some kind of other software, when you're
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  Speaker 3: almost done in that world, you sent out the software
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  Speaker 3: to the customers and they will complete it for you.
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  Speaker 3: They will find all the errors and then report back
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  Speaker 3: to you, and that way you get a better version
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  Speaker 3: and then another better version. I mean, if you, depending
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  Speaker 3: on how old your listeners are, if they remember when
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  Speaker 3: three point zero or three point one or so, those
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  Speaker 3: were very glitchy software, but they were sent out by
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  Speaker 3: millions and then over time all the glitches were taken out.
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  Speaker 3: And Tesla has taken that approach and applied it to
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  Speaker 3: vehicles that weigh a ton two tons and travel at
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  Speaker 3: you know, one hundred kilometers or faster per hour on
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  Speaker 3: the roads, and it just seems awkward that we're all
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  Speaker 3: in this kind of testing area of his, that he's
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  Speaker 3: turned all the roads into this lab. But he says, well,
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  Speaker 3: that's the fastest way to learn, and it's really important
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  Speaker 3: that we do this as fast as possible, So he's
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  Speaker 3: fine with it.
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  Speaker 2: A lot has of course, taking place in the last
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  Speaker 2: sort of year or so, and the book finishes just
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  Speaker 2: as President Trump is elected. Do you think that Alan
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  Speaker 2: saw himself as a shadow president?
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  Speaker 3: Well, definitely. He expl simply said, I'm going into politics
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  Speaker 3: to stop all these silly investigations or maybe not silly,
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  Speaker 3: but stupid investigations. In his mind, he knew full well
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  Speaker 3: that all the investigations, like I just laid out that
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  Speaker 3: the SEC actually was investigating, is he is what he's
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  Speaker 3: doing there? Is that being very hopeful or optimistic or
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  Speaker 3: is that actual? You know, of course, stock manipulation, market manipulation.
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  Speaker 3: There were investigations into the autopilot software, investigations about free
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  Speaker 3: speech and hate speech, not not getting hate speech in
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  Speaker 3: X and all that, and he explicitly I don't want
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  Speaker 3: that to stop, and so I'm going to get a
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  Speaker 3: guy into the White house that is going to owe me.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that Elon Musk is actually cut out
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  Speaker 2: for politics?
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  Speaker 3: It's not really him for the last I mean the
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  Speaker 3: last nine months. I guess you could say a totally
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  Speaker 3: extraordinary for him. It's not He always said he didn't
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  Speaker 3: want politics. That's not for him. And it's such a
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  Speaker 3: long game, a complicated game. And he's the tech guy.
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  Speaker 3: He wants to take humanity to Mars. He has much
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  Speaker 3: higher goals and I didn't. It seems that he didn't
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  Speaker 3: expect Trump to be that just you know, taking his
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  Speaker 3: money and then cutting the text benefits for his electric vehicles.
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  Speaker 3: That apparently he didn't expect that, and that he's founded
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  Speaker 3: this or is trying to find to come up with
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  Speaker 3: this Third American Party. It seems to me a little
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  Speaker 3: bit out of spite, maybe out of the moment, the
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  Speaker 3: anger of the moment. Afterwards, he's already given him more
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  Speaker 3: money now Trump that it doesn't I mean, Musk has
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  Speaker 3: given Trump additional money. Why would you do that if
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  Speaker 3: you have your own party too. He has to get
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  Speaker 3: into the good graces of Trump again, because otherwise, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Tesla has actually lost money in the first quarter. They
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  Speaker 3: were in the red with the car business. They were
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  Speaker 3: only profitable because they were selling the CO two emissions
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  Speaker 3: and if that's going away, it doesn't look very good
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  Speaker 3: for his company, and it's it's it's very costly to
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  Speaker 3: run that bigger company.
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  Speaker 2: Why are we so intrigued by mask.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I want to stress I'm not
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  Speaker 3: against trust in anyway. I'm not putting him down. I'm
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  Speaker 3: not saying, you know, he's a fraud. And some people
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  Speaker 3: say that Obviously he's a very intelligent guy. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: who else has created a car company in the Western
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  Speaker 3: world at least in the last what five six decades?
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  Speaker 3: And not only has he done that, he's created the
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  Speaker 3: most valuable car company in the world, and he's sold
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  Speaker 3: more electric vehicles than anybody else. I mean, I'm from
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  Speaker 3: Germany and we have to admit that the very old,
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  Speaker 3: traditional and maybe arrogant car industry in our country did
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  Speaker 3: not do what he was able to do as an outsider.
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  Speaker 3: And also what he's accomplished with space X that if
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  Speaker 3: NASA wants to get back the astronauts from the space station,
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  Speaker 3: they actually have to call him. So obviously the guy
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  Speaker 3: is really really smart. And I'm a great businessman at
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  Speaker 3: the same time he's got all these flaws, so it's
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  Speaker 3: it's really hard to see what will happen next. We'll
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  Speaker 3: just watch and as a report, I mean, we're not
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  Speaker 3: done re written this book and detailed all in this book,
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  Speaker 3: but we are continuing to report what's happening in the
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  Speaker 3: newspaper and maybe there will be another book soon.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it's lovely to talk to you, and thank you
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  Speaker 2: very much for the book, very very much enjoyed it.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you. That's nice to hear.
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  Speaker 2: And that was investigative journalist Sunka iverson. The book we
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  Speaker 2: discussed is called The Tesla Files and it is in
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: stores now.
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