Musk is tick-ed off at CBS

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk was back on Twitter Tuesday, charging that CBS did him wrong in its editsedi of the “60 Minutes” interview thatt aired on Sunday night. The 14-minute segment, culled from hours of interview tape (pictured), had the billionaire bad boy taking on everything from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the United Auto Workers. Since the broadcast, Musk and others close to Tesla have been accusing CBS of leaving critical snippets on the cutting-room floor.

Their complaints begin with a pre-broadcast tweet that CBS posted to promote the “60 Minutes” segment — one that asked if Musk wanted to reclaim the chairman title he gave up in September as part of a settlement with the SEC.

CBS’ teaser tweet limited Musk’s reply to a simple “No.”

But the full answer, according to footage of the interview, was: “No, I don’t think. I actually just prefer to have no titles at all.”

Similarly, the broadcast interview cut Musk short after he was asked if he had “handpicked” his successor as chairman.

“Yes,” Musk responds in the edited version of the interview.

Electrek, a trade Web site, claims the CEO’s complete answer was more expansive.

Having obtained a copy of the interview’s full transcript, Electrek quotes Musk’s unedited response as: “Yes… handpicked her? I asked for a chair, and the rest of the board was very supportive of that.”

The transcript edited by “60 Minutes” also portrays Musk as more arrogant than he is when asked if Tesla’s new chairman had the power to control him.

His answer, per “60 Minutes”: “It’s not realistic in the sense that I am the largest shareholder in the company. And I can just call for a shareholder vote and get anything done that I want.”

His full answer: “I mean that’s not realistic because I am the largest shareholder in the company and a very high percentage of the shareholders support me and the company. So essentially I could just pull for a shareholder vote and get anything that I want, provided I could get support for at least a third of the other shareholders. [That’s] not certain, but likely. At the end of the day the shareholders pull the vote.”

“60 Minutes” didn’t immediately respond when asked if its production about Tesla and its CEO sacrificed clarity for brevity.