Former Uber engineer slams Tesla in texts to Travis Kalanick: 'We've got to start calling Elon on his sh-t' (TSLA)

Elon Musk

Waymo, Google's self-driving sister company, claims in a lawsuit that Uber stole intellectual property and trade secrets when it acquired a startup cofounded by Anthony Levandowski.
Levandowski was the head of Waymo's self-driving team before joining Uber.
Levandowski slammed Tesla's approach to self-driving tech in text messages to Travis Kalanick, Uber's cofounder and ousted CEO. The texts were made public via a court filing.

A former Uber engineer slammed Tesla CEO Elon Musk in texts to Travis Kalanick, Uber's cofounder and ousted CEO.

The engineer in question, Anthony Levandowski, is at the heart of a lawsuit filed by Waymo, Google's self-driving sister company. The suit claims Levandowski, the former head of Waymo, stole intellectual property and trade secrets and used them for Uber's autonomous efforts.

Levandowski joined Uber in August 2016 when the company acquired his self-driving startup, Otto. Uber fired Levandowski in May over his refusal to cooperate in the legal case.

A court filing, first reported by IEEE Spectrum's Mark Harris, shows text exchanges Levandowski had with Kalanick while the two were planning the Otto acquisition.

An interesting nugget buried in the texts is a shot Levandowski took at Musk's approach to self-driving technology.

"We’ve got to start calling Elon on his sh-t," Levandowski wrote in a Sept. 2016 text. "I'm not on social media but let's start 'faketesla' and start give physics lessons about stupid sh-t Elon says..."

Tesla did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment.

Travis Kalanick Anthony Levandowski

Levandowski's example of "stupid sh-t Elon says" is the Tesla CEO's reasoning behind his decision not to use lidar, a notoriously expensive sensor that helps self-driving cars detect obstacles.

Musk has said Tesla does not use lidar for its Autopilot technology because it cannot penetrate rain, fog, dust or snow. Instead, Tesla cars are equipped with a radar sensor, which use radio waves to detect obstacles instead of lasers.

Waymo, Ford, and General Motors are a few companies that are equipping their self-driving cars with radar and lidar.

Levandowski also accuses Musk of lying about the number of crashes that have occurred while a Tesla car is operating with Autopilot activated.

"Tesla crash in January … implies Elon is lying about millions of miles without incident," Levandowski wrote. "We should have LDP on Tesla just to catch all the crashes that are going on," Levandowski said in a text message in September 2016.

Levandowski appears to be referring to a Jan. 20 fatal crash in China that occurred while Autopilot was activated, as reported by the New York Times. Tesla removed the Chinese term for "self-driving" from its webpage regarding Autopilot following the accident, Reuters reported at the time.

The court filing does not show any response from Kalanick.

Levandowski may have been skeptical of Musk's approach to self-driving cars, but Kalanick reportedly asked Musk in 2016 to partner on an autonomous ride-hailing platform. Musk turned down the offer.

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