Photo: U.S. Department of Transportation/Duke University
At Tesla’s Q3 2021 earnings call, top executives said it was “a great thing” that NHTSA had Missy Cummings check how safe Autopilot and FSD really are. On Twitter, Elon Musk said she was biased against Tesla, and his followers started a petition against her nomination. Asked about that, the U.S. Transportation Secretary said Musk should call him.
Pete Buttigieg told ReutersNHTSA is “responsible for making sure that every vehicle on the road is safe.” That said, nominating Cummings was part of that mission. The secretary also poked Musk about the way he handles communication. Buttigieg announced that Musk is welcome to call him “if he’s concerned.”
From what the secretary said, it seems Tesla did not get in touch with him officially to express any issues with the Duke professor’s nomination as a senior adviser for safety. Until and Musk does that, Tesla’s official approach towards the nomination is the one Lars Moravy and Zachary Kirkhorn expressed at the Q3 2021 earnings call.
Moravy is Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering and Kirkhorn was Tesla’s CFO (chief financial officer) until Musk named him Master of Coin. They answered questions Martin Viecha, head of Investor Relations at the company, was reading. They were sent by “institutional and retail shareholders.”
Among these questions was how they viewed “the tightening regulatory environment for FSD in the investigation and broad data request by NHTSA.” That was when Viecha mentioned Cummings as a recent nominee to the agency, one that has “been publicly critical of FSD, including engaging with short-sellers online.” We checked Tesla’s website for questions, and this one came from an anonymous institutional investor. Viecha read it precisely as it was formulated.
Moravy said he and his team “expect and embrace the scrutiny of these products and know that the truth about their performance and the innovations our products have will ultimately be all that matters.” Kirkhorn was apparently more enthusiastic about it. He said: “This is a great thing. We're excited to partner.”
If the company has not officially expressed concerns about Cumming’s nomination, it is weird that its investors and fans have a petition to cancel her nomination. So far, it has more than 16,000 signatures. After all, that’s not something Tesla asked in the first place apart from Musk’s tweet, which is a rant rather than corporate communication.
Buttigieg is probably waiting for that phone call. Not that it will change anything, but it would be interesting to see Musk adopt a more professional approach to something he said may hurt his company’s interests.
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