To Elon Musk’s resumé of electric car pioneer, solar energy advocate, Hyperloop dreamer and space traveler, add wannabe rescuer of young boys trapped in Thai cave.
The Tesla Inc. TSLA, -0.55% chief executive said in a series of tweets Thursday that he is sending engineers from two of his companies to Thailand to assist with the effort to bring out the 12 members of a Thai soccer team and their coach from a flooded cave that has kept them underground for about two weeks.
The boys, who range in age from 11 to 16, were found alive on Monday after going missing in a flooded network of caves. The rescue effort is being hampered by high water levels that are not expected to subside for weeks and their inability to swim.
Read also: Thailand cave rescue: Volunteer diver dies during operation
Musk said his Boring Co., whose main mission is to dig tunnels for futuristic transport systems, and SpaceX, his space exploration company, will send engineers to Thailand on Saturday. The rescue effort can use these companies’ battery packs, air pumps and tubes, Musk said, and speculated that a nylon tube could be inserted into the cave and then inflated with air, “like a bouncy castle.”
SpaceX & Boring Co engineers headed to Thailand tomorrow to see if we can be helpful to govt. There are probably many complexities that are hard to appreciate without being there in person.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
Maybe worth trying: insert a 1m diameter nylon tube (or shorter set of tubes for most difficult sections) through cave network & inflate with air like a bouncy castle. Should create an air tunnel underwater against cave roof & auto-conform to odd shapes like the 70cm hole.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
Looks like 1st bit of water is close enough to entrance to be pumped out. 2nd & 3rd would need battery packs, air pumps & tubes. If depth of 2nd is accurate, would need ~0.5 bar tube pressure. Prob need to enter tube, zip up & then transit.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
So long as air feed rate exceeds leak rate, tube remains inflated. This is how bouncy castles or inflatable mazes work. Needs very little power as the work (physics def of work) done is low. Pumping out water faster than it enters the cave system is prob 10X to 1000X more power.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018
Musk had already offered the Thai government his help earlier this week. There has been no official response to his offer yet.
The tweets proved a welcome break from another series blasted out by Musk earlier in the day that again attacked media outlets that Musk believes are hostile to Tesla, including Reuters, Business Insider and CNBC. Musk has become a relentless critic of the press and recently unveiled plans to create a Yelp-like site to let people rate the credibility of journalists and news organizations, and suggested he would name it after the former Soviet Union’s main propaganda outlet, Pravda.
On Thursday, Musk dismissed a report from Reuters TRI, +0.49% last week that described the hothouse atmosphere at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., production plant as it pulled out all the stops to meet a key production goal.
“Reuters is relentlessly negative about Telsa,” he wrote, accusing the news agency of misleading the public.
.@Reuters is relentlessly negative about Tesla. They just wrote a bogus article saying S production last week was low by 800 cars. S/X annual prod is set at ~100k, ie 1,900/week. Tesla built 1,913 S/X cars at our standard ~50/50 split last week, which is right on target.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2018
He then proceeded to criticize Business Insider and said reporter Linette Lopez had written “several false articles” about Telsa and even paid a former employee for intellectual property. Business Insider shot down the claim and said it stands by Lopez’s reporting.
Sounds very sketchy if true. @lopezlinette, is it possible you’re serving as an inside trading source for one of Tesla’s biggest short-sellers? An ex-Tesla employee just went on record formally claiming you bribed him & he sent you valuable Tesla IP in exchange. Is this true?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2018
Finally, Musk criticized CNBC and its analysts for “extremely bad prediction records.”
Strange. @cnbc, is it true that you are putting on analysts with such low ratings & extremely bad prediction records? Are your viewers informed about an analyst’s track record before hearing their opinion.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2018
Musk’s habit of railing against the media has led some analysts to question his suitability to the role of head of a public company. His many projects and companies have others asking if he is being spread a little too thin.
See now: After eight years as a public company, Tesla still has teething problems
Meanwhile, the company said on Monday that it had finally achieved a key production goal of 5,000 Model 3s a week, a target that had proved elusive for the past several quarters. But the goal was met by creating a temporary production line in a tent, leaving some to question whether it is sustainable.
Tesla shares were slightly lower premarket Friday, but have fallen 0.7% in 2018 through Thursday, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.86% has gained 2.4%.
Read now: Tesla stock slammed as analysts question whether production goal is sustainable
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