Musk may release Tesla Phone if Apple and Google do it

Rumors and misinformation about Tesla smartphone have been circulating for years, but company CEO Elon Musk addressed the topic in a recent interview.

“No, we won’t make a phone,” Musk told comedian Joe Rogan on air Joe Rogan’s Experience Podcast. The billionaire added that Tesla is “probably” in a better position to create a smartphone without Android and iOS than other companies, pointing to the automaker’s software.

“But it’s not something we want to do unless we have to or something,” he explained.

Musk outlined what Tesla needs to enter the smartphone arena:

If Apple and Google killed Android, started doing really bad things like, I don’t know, censoring apps or… just being gatekeepers in a really bad way, then I think we would have made a phone (sic).

It is worth noting that regulators around the world, especially in the European Union, ruled that Apple and Google are gatekeepers in the smartphone space to varying degrees.

Arguments for and against the Tesla phone

Tesla’s entertainment system in its cars does provide access to a variety of apps and games, so it seems like this software could be some sort of foundation for any future non-Android smartphone. It’s also clear that Tesla could use SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service for some form of communication. The company is already testing the so-called direct call service to support text messages and emergency alerts on T-Mobile smartphones.

That being said, creating a smartphone that doesn’t run on Android or iOS is much easier said than done. Microsoft learned this the hard way with the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft has struggled to convince developers to create apps for its platform. The biggest opponent was Google, which refused to move most of its services to Microsoft’s platform. This will be an obstacle for Tesla as well.

Even setting your phone to Android is no guarantee of success, as Amazon found out with its 2014 Fire Phone. This phone ran a forked version of Android called Fire OS. Amazon also had several advantages, including its own app store and a huge online retail network. That didn’t stop the Fire Phone from flopping, though Fire OS is still used on the company’s tablets and streaming gadgets.

We’ve also seen millions of Americans stick with Apple thanks to iMessage, although Apple’s messaging platform now supports RCS for more modern text messaging between iPhones and Android phones. So that’s another big hurdle facing a potential Tesla phone.

It goes without saying that Musk’s handling of Twitter doesn’t bode well for the Tesla phone either, as the company’s valuation has changed. reportedly fell sharply ever since the billionaire purchased it.