| Seated at a conference table in his Washington, DC, office, the nation’s top federal safety investigator, Robert Sumwalt, looked at his iPhone and was stunned as never before. “He hung up on us.” Over twenty-seven contentious minutes on April 11, 2018, in Sumwalt’s recollection, Elon Musk had fumed, protested, threatened to sue, and abruptly exited the conversation when safety investigators refused to bend to his will. Autopilot, Musk believed, would play a pivotal role in advancing traffic safety, and Tesla wanted to make it happen as quickly as possible. Musk seemed to believe that even if some lives were lost in the process, those who opposed his vision of the future were roadblocks to progress. His legions of admirers validated this belief; his methods were the right ones, and his way was the only path forward. Who was the government to stand in the way? |
