Yesterday the Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent some darts to Apple during his results presentation quarterly. It wouldn’t be the first time the mogul has published comments against the apple giant. Something that strikes us as curious as Elon Musk is known to use an iPhone as his personal phone. In fact, Elon Musk is known to change iPhones regularly.
Comments started after Musk asked about plans to allow competitors to use Tesla’s electric vehicle charger network. The owner of Tesla – PayPal and SpaceX as well – noted that the e-vehicle giant’s intention is not to hit or hurt its competitors with practices such as “Apple’s walled garden.”
Elon Musk criticizes Apple during Tesla results presentation
When Musk refers to Apple’s “walled garden,” he is referring to how the apple giant manages his company’s policies. Concretely speaking, criticizes the fact that Apple is a closed platform over which it has full control
This is why Musk answers the original question that his main intention is not to negatively affect his competitors, since hope everyone can benefit from Tesla’s electric vehicle charger network. He also stressed that its aim is to support the arrival of sustainable energy.
But that was not all, since when asked about Tesla batteries, Musk again referred to Apple. He explained that contrary to popular belief, Tesla does not use as much cobalt as Apple: “I think Apple uses almost 100% cobalt in its batteries, cellphones, and laptops.
In case you didn’t know, the Cobalt is a necessary metal for lithium-ion battery cells used in electronic devices.. Musk claimed that on average Tesla could use 2% cobalt compared to Apple’s 100% cobalt.
What about Cobalt and companies like Apple or Tesla?
the Cobalt is a metal linked to human rights violations. Indeed, it has been proven that in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, children are used as laborers to obtain cobalt. Indeed, in 2016, Apple was criticized for allegedly purchasing batteries from a Chinese manufacturer who sourced cobalt from an offending producer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Despite this, Apple maintains a list of all of its cobalt smelters and refineries and audits them regularly. In 2020, all of their cobalt suppliers were audited and there were no issues.
This isn’t the first time – and we’re sure it won’t be the last – that Apple and Tesla have argued. In 2015, Musk called Apple the “Tesla Graveyard” because “if you can’t get into Tesla, you’re going to work at Apple.”
