Elon Musk is unusually upset about an article slamming Tesla's autopilot
The story published by Fortune Tuesday suggested that Tesla withheld information about the May 7 crash, ahead of a multibillion-dollar stock offering that happened later the same month.
Musk went off on Fortune Tuesday with a couple of tweets, calling the article "BS."
In a follow-up blog post titled "Misfortune" posted on Wednesday, Tesla went in again on the publication in the first line, saying "Fortune's article is fundamentally incorrect."
Tesla decried the assertion that it wanted to keep news of the crash under wraps, and said it "barely started" its investigation of the crash when it notified the US government about it in mid-May, around the same time that the stock sale took place.
Here's more from Tesla:
Tesla's blog post goes into a lengthy defense of its semi-autonomous Autopilot technology, and asserts that the crash never damaged the electric-car company's standing in the market. "Tesla's stock traded up, not down" despite the government's late June announcement that it was looking into the crash, the blog post read.
Some observers have taken issue with Tesla's latest missive:
At least one expert believes the crash won't damage Tesla.
NYU Stern professor and founder of the research firm, L2, Scott Galloway told Business Insider last week that Tesla and its technologies have built up enough goodwill in the market to withstand the setback.
"Self-driving technology has a lot of momentum. Short of a number of crashes like this, I think it's going to be a blip on the radar."