Elon Musk and Richard Branson are already kinda-sorta competing in the private space race, but for delusional billionaires, that's not enough. Branson says he might want to compete with Tesla now, except he said the exact opposite the same day.
Bloomberg got some face time with Virgin's head honcho at last week's Formula E race in Miami. When asked about how Branson could use his team's racing technology in the market he's quoted:
"We have teams of people working on electric cars," Branson said. "So you never know — you may find Virgin competing with the Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business. We will see what happens."
However, during a press conference earlier in the day, Branson joined Formula E's CEO Alejandro Agag to answer some questions. Included among them was whether Virgin and Branson had any intentions of competing with Tesla. I didn't get a quote, because his answer was a simple negative. But I thought I'd mark the occasion:
So, Mr. Branson, let's consider this a chance to clarify your statements. Do you want to make an electric car and go head-to-head with Tesla? Or is this just another attempt at drumming up some headlines to stroke your ego? The floor is yours.
Photo: Damon Lavrinc
Contact the author at damon@jalopnik.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 7301 D7FC 2FF6 D437 E5A7 0568 3A14 624A 1800 4C85