A Tesla phone isn't coming unless Elon Musk considers Apple and Google 'bad'
Image credit: Concept Design DR
Elon Musk sat with Joe Rogan in a pre-election podcast edition and divulged some of his intentions around Tesla's mythical smartphone that has been years in the rumor mill. While Tesla's CEO didn't deny that such a project has been in the planning, he said that the company will only make one if it is forced to do it.
The elusive handset has been appearing on and off as an imminent release for years now, but it has stayed vaporware with no concrete prototypes or engineering samples ever unearthed, though Elon Musk has previously given some indications that he has at least entertained the idea.
It is not out of the question
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2024
There have been plenty of concepts and wacky renders of a Tesla phone, but Tesla has seemingly never considered this as a serious project. Still, when Apple Intelligence was announced with OpenAI's ChatGPT partnership for the iPhone, Musk sounded off that he doesn't want "this creepy spyware or all Apple devices will be banned from the premises of my companies."
While this may be constituted as another of Musk's typical rants, since he is on bad terms with OpenAI's team due to the differences of opinion you see in the email exchange below, it shows one of the conditions that would force Tesla to consider making its own phone.
Elon Musk's email exchange with Ilya Sutskever | Image credit – OpenAI
In any case, another use case scenario for a Tesla phone would be communicating with the automaker's vehicles better. Vaunted Chinese electric car company NIO, for example, made its own handset with some special features like touchless unlock or start, as well as dedicated software. It also partnered with Oppo to do the same on its handsets, so Tesla's potential work on such a project could circle down that path as well.
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