Musk rips crash coverage

As electric-carmaker Tesla reported record results, CEO Elon Musk slammed press coverage of Tesla crashes that may have involved its “autopilot” feature.

Tesla late Monday released its second-quarter earnings, which showed that record sales of its lower-priced Model 3 and Model Y cars helped the company post more than $1 billion in profit, 10 times what it made a year earlier.

But it wasn’t Tesla’s numbers that seemed to preoccupy the eccentric tech tycoon on a Monday conference call with analysts, in which Musk took potshots at journalists.

The South African billionaire excoriated coverage of an April fatal Model S crash in Houston, in which many media outlets reported that Tesla’s “autopilot” feature may have been in use despite Musk’s denials.

“Those journalists should be ashamed of themselves,” Musk (right) said, condemning “extremely deceptive media practices.”

The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report on the wreck in May, but has not ruled out the possibility that autopilot was engaged.

Tesla shares were down 1.7 percent at $646.27 shortly after markets opened Tuesday, MarketWatch reported.