Take a breath and imagine you’re thinking about any other CEO than Elon Musk. Then read this paragraph.

On October 25, 2024, Musk casually uploads a video on X showing himself playing Diablo, an online role-playing game. In the background, a SpaceX team briefs him about issues with an orbital test flight. ‘I want to be really up-front about scary shit that happened,’ says an engineer. ‘We had a misconfigured spin-gas abort that didn’t have quite the right ramp-up time for bringing up spin pressure. And we were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower.’ Musk, who has security clearance due to his cooperation with the U.S. government, continues slashing skeletons with unnerving calm, replying without pausing his game: ‘Wow, yikes!’ This near-catastrophe and Musk’s relaxed approach to it barely gets any coverage. In the fall of 2024, Musk generates headlines at such a furious pace that journalists can hardly keep up. He produces news incessantly – news no other CEO could possibly survive.

As the authors of the book say, if Tesla had their way, this book would not exist. When the authors reached out to Tesla and asked to speak with Elon Musk, the reply came from the Tesla legal department. They did probably reach Musk; how, you ask? Because they had three of his email addresses, that were leaked to them.

The reason for why the book was written is simple: a former Tesla employee contacted the authors. At first, the whistleblower presented the authors with a list of 5,000 former employees, which were available to all Tesla employees via Jira, a ticket-handling and software-development system.

Then, the whistleblower disclosed a list of 100,000 current and former employees, a list that was also available for all via Jira. The list contained social security numbers, reasons for why people were fired, and other information that should never be disclosed.

In the U.S., if you know someone’s name, address, and social security number, you have all you need for identity theft. With that information, criminals can apply for loans or credit cards in the victim’s name and run up massive debts. They could also open bank accounts to launder money. Another common case is using stolen identity to access healthcare services – which leads to financial damages and mix-ups in the victim’s medical records. Preventing identity theft requires special care in handling personal data. That applies not only to individuals, but also and particularly to companies that collect and store such information about their employees. All of this, I’m sure, must be known at Tesla. Its CEO Elon Musk sees his company as a tech firm, not a mere car manufacturer. Processing and protecting data should therefore be central to everything the company does. It simply isn’t fathomable that an untold amount of sensitive information like this is floating around the internal network.

Naturally, this is the least-shocking news.

While Elon Musk slept with guns¹ and swallowed hallucinogenic drugs while advising Donald Trump on how to rule their universe², and getting fined around 40 million USD for joking about his Twitter ‘purchase’³, to being forced to buy Twitter and consequently owing Saudi Arabian investors enough money for them to control Musk⁴ to notable extents, how Tesla vehicles are created is the most shocking thing.

The Tesla Files unveil how carelessly Tesla deal with human safety.

Another example of Tesla’s technical issues is the experience of Manfred Schon. The software developer and former employee of the German automotive supplier Bosch contacted us about an incident from October 2019. At the time, Schon was driving his Tesla along the M14 road between his hometown of Northville and Ann Arbor, Michigan, on a flat, straight road. Another vehicle was about 100 meters ahead when he noticed brake lights in his lane – but no signs of congestion. Schon says he eased off the accelerator but did not brake. ‘All of a sudden, the car slammed on the brakes – as hard as you can possibly imagine. It wasn’t gradual at all.’ Seconds later, his Tesla stopped in the middle of the lane, Schon’s seatbelt pulled tight across his chest. Then the car behind slammed into him. Looking back, Schon was angry at himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d had issues with his Tesla. But he had hoped that the Autopilot would improve with future software updates. After the crash, he wrote to Tesla on October 28, 2019. The unintended braking was ‘no longer acceptable’ and represented ‘a safety hazard,’ he complained. He never received a response – not even an acknowledgment of receipt. Still, Schon kept driving the high-risk vehicle. During service visits, he mentioned the incident, but technicians brushed it off. Probably a software issue, they said. He should just wait – updates would fix it over time. After many more phantom-braking episodes, on March 18, 2021 Schon managed to obtain the email address of a Tesla employee. Under the subject line ‘Model S Safety Issue,’ he described the unwanted braking in detail. Tesla asked him to bring the vehicle to a service center, where it was kept for several weeks. When he returned to pick it up, he was told no fault had been found. The company said there was nothing more it could do. Schon gave up. He suggested Tesla buy back the car at market value – minus the cost of the Autopilot package. No answer. Selling it himself was out of the question. He couldn’t do it – not in good conscience, he told us. What shocked him most was Tesla’s attitude: ‘This complete lack of concern given the seriousness of the safety problems.’

Unfortunately, the example is standard for Tesla. They don’t give a toss about you, after you’ve bought a super-expensive car that can stop working at any point.

Ask legendary programmer Steve Wozniak.

Apple legend Steve Wozniak – whose data appears in the Tesla Files – said in an interview that Musk personally convinced him to buy a Tesla, promising it would be able to drive itself across the country by the end of 2016. ‘I actually believed those things, and it’s not even close to reality,’ Wozniak told CNN in 2023. ‘And boy, if you want a study of AI gone wrong and taking a lot of claims and trying to kill you every chance it can, get a Tesla.’

Musk is great at getting people to hate billionaires, but one exception might be Dan O’Dowd.

Even more dramatic is Dan O’Dowd, a billionaire from California. His company develops software for the mobility sector – making him a direct competitor of Tesla. O’Dowd founded The Dawn Project, an initiative aimed at uncovering safety flaws in other manufacturers’ systems. Musk, Tesla, and Autopilot are its primary targets. The campaign frequently grabs headlines with bold stunts. In February 2023, O’Dowd spent $7 million on a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl; more than 113 million people in the U.S. watched the NFL championship. The clip showed allegedly self-driving Teslas breaking traffic laws, hitting a stroller, and running over a child-sized dummy on a pedestrian crossing. A voice-over warned: ‘Tesla’s Full Self-Driving endangers the public.’

After the laughter, the authors of this book take the many concerns of people seriously. They sifted through aeons of data to see customer complaints, lies, and even more lies, especially in terms of engineering. It’s one thing to grift when making bullshit software like Twitter, but it’s another thing to grift about creating cars that kill people.

Take, for example, an Excel spreadsheet titled NO Employee Vehicles false braking, dated October 2020. ‘NO’ stands for Norway. Tesla employees in the Scandinavian country had documented how their vehicles, with Autopilot engaged, would brake on their own – without any clear reason, and sometimes at high speed. Their verdict was damning. One noted that sudden braking occurred ‘once or twice per drive.’ Another reported experiencing phantom braking or abrupt slowdowns ‘on almost every drive, usually a couple of times on my longer weekend drives at different locations.’ Several employees admitted they had stopped using Autopilot altogether after such incidents. None of them could identify a cause. They shared their theories in a spreadsheet. One suspected that his Model 3’s Autopilot was misinterpreting speed limits on road signs. In any case, his car braked ‘multiple times per day’ for no apparent reason. Oncoming traffic on narrow roads also seemed to confuse the system. Another employee noted that his car would always slow down at the same spot, which was just before a tunnel. He tested the section with ten different Teslas and wrote: ‘Every car I’ve tested slows down there – for no reason.’ A third speculated that ‘deep shadows under bridges might also have something to do with it.’ His Tesla had braked hard three times in three weeks – each time while overtaking on the highway.

The book goes through the legal throes of the whistleblower: in late 2024, a Norwegian court of law decides that Tesla must pay him compensations and his legal costs, but in 2025, Tesla appeals that ruling.

Musk is fascist. He claims his door is open and that a free climate of whistleblowing is important. Meanwhile, he overrides managers in his own companies and acts a modern-day god of war. Interestingly enough, in the year 2025, Musk fathered his 14th child, Romulus; the first king of Rome, is the son of Mars, the god of war. Something that might have slipped Musk’s mind is that all of that is according to Roman mythology. In real life, however…

During our reporting, we come across the issue of door handles. On Teslas, the handles retract into the doors while driving. The system depends on battery power. If an airbag deploys, the doors are supposed to unlock automatically, and the handles extend. That’s what the Model S manual says. The idea for the sleek, futuristic design stems from Musk. He insisted on retractable handles, despite repeated warnings from engineers. Today, Tesla’s door handles are considered a potential safety hazard. Since 2018, they’ve been linked to at least four fatal accidents in Europe and the U.S. Five people died.

Things get even worse as time goes by. Take Musk’s endorsement of the German extreme far-right political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

‘Only the AfD can save Germany,’ Musk writes on his platform X on December 20, 2024. Germany is in a government crisis. The AfD is rising. Critics accuse Musk of backing an extremist party. Inside Tesla’s Grünheide factory, a different question surfaces: Does the boss even know who he is endorsing? How does his support align with the super-rational, numbers-driven leader from the DNA presentation – especially given the party’s history with Tesla? If the AfD had its way, the Grünheide factory would have never even existed. The approval process for the factory began in early 2020. By February, construction was underway. ‘It’s the wrong choice of location,’ said Kathleen Muxel, an AfD member in Brandenburg’s state parliament, at a rally in June. The AfD called for a halt to the build. Two months later, the party protested in Grünheide, condemning Musk’s plans as ‘a nightmare for people and nature.’ Other AfD voices warned of groundwater damage and the ‘lack of long-term viability of electric vehicles.’ When construction advanced, Muxel bemoaned it as ‘a disgrace to the German rule of law.’ To the AfD, fighting against Tesla was fighting for Germany. ‘Who does Tesla think they are? Where would we end up if we let every “Mister Billionaire” from America destroy our homeland at will?’ said Muxel in April 2021. Musk, of course, pushed through. By March 2022, the first cars were rolling out of the shiny new Gigafactory – the crown jewel of Tesla, as he called it.

How do the courts look at Tesla cars?

Among our readers are many customers currently battling Tesla in court. Some contact us hoping for ammunition to use in their lawsuits. We always decline. We’re journalists, not partisans. But we try to talk to everyone who might have a story. Our thinking: every frustrated customer might be sitting on something important. That’s how we come across the case of Emil Dupont, an IT consultant from Belgium. He buys a Model S in mid-2018 – and complains of defects from day one. Seven repair attempts later, the issues persist. Tesla offers to take the car back for the full purchase price, but never follows through. The case ends up in court. Dupont wins. The appeals court in Antwerp orders Tesla to refund him €158,600. The ruling is a bombshell – the highest-profile court decision in Europe against Tesla over a consumer complaint. The court’s reasoning reads like a direct rebuke of Elon Musk and his Autopilot hype. The Belgian judge attests that Dupont’s Tesla suffers from ‘serious defects in driving comfort and safety.’ The IT consultant’s recurring issues, the court finds, demonstrate that ‘the vehicle is not suited for its intended normal use.’

The book comes across as a bit fragmented, but that’s understandable. The authors, not to mention the whistleblower, has fought an avalanche of hatred, ongoing legal battles, slander, and lies to get where they are: exposing Elon Musk’s lies, including those of his kleptocratic companies that are run by people who don’t understand their workers. Even worse, they don’t care about their bottom-line customers (the people who can afford to buy a Tesla car), and even worse yet, if possible, they care even less about people who are killed by having a Tesla run into them or suddenly slam its breaks while they’re just behind in their working car.

This is an impressive book that could have been more tightly edited. Still, the ends justify everything: the book is coherent, even as it jumps and skips from event to fact. I got the sense that I was looking over the shoulder of the journalists as they were uncovering and discovering more and more heinous details about Musk and his fake empire.

There have been a bunch of books released about Musk and his destruction of Twitter in the past couple of years⁵, but this book focuses on what Tesla have done in recent years and beyond that. The authors don’t try to delve into Musk’s psyche as much as some guessing-games people have, but rather look into the facts of his actions and those of people who work for him. Tesla is often described as a sect where the members blindly obey the Ultimate Leader; make no mistake, these are intelligent people, but they genuflect to Musk just to keep their pay, even though customers are jumping ship⁶.

Maybe it’s because they don’t like fascists who run kleptocracies that create products that kill people.