Monthly Archives: December 2020

News: Apple releases its ‘Best of 2020’ App Store winners and most downloaded apps of the year

• December 2, 2020
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Apple today released its highly anticipated annual list of the best apps and games of 2020. As in previous years, App Store editors selected the winners based on factors like the app’s quality, creative design, usability and use of Apple technology, among other things. The “Best of 2020” winners this year include a number of

Apple today released its highly anticipated annual list of the best apps and games of 2020. As in previous years, App Store editors selected the winners based on factors like the app’s quality, creative design, usability and use of Apple technology, among other things. The “Best of 2020” winners this year include a number of apps that helped people transition to a life spent at home. For example, home workout app Wakeout! won iPhone App of the Year, while Zoom snagged the top spot as the iPad App of the Year.

Disney+, which helped families keep kids entertained during coronavirus lockdowns, won for Apple TV App of the Year. The streaming service had just won “best app” in Google Play’s User Choice category, announced on Tuesday alongside its other Play Store winners.

Top games of the year highlighted our collective need for escapism, often to fantasy worlds. This year, the list of game winners included Genshin Impact (also a Play Store “best game” winner) for iPhone Game of the Year; Legends of Runeterra as iPad Game of the Year; Disco Elysium as Mac Game of the Year; Dandara Trials of Fear as Apple TV Game of the Year; and Sneaky Sasquatch as the Apple Arcade Game of the Year.

Meanwhile, productivity app Fantastical won as Apple’s Mac App of the Year, a reflection of our new work-from-home lifestyles.

A relaxation and sleep app, Endel, won Apple Watch App of the Year.

It’s not surprising to see another relaxation app win a top app of the year accolade. Google just awarded sleep app, Loóna, the title of best app of 2020 on Tuesday, as well.

2020 has been a tough year filled with stressful events, including not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but Trump’s impeachment and November’s contentious U.S. presidential elections, the biggest stock market crash since ’87, protests and riots over racial injustice, wildfires in Australia and the U.S. West, the Weinstein verdict, Brexit, the deadly Beirut explosion, violence in Delhi, the Hong Kong protests, locust swarms in East Africa and deaths of prominent figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kobe Bryant Chadwick Boseman and others.

As Apple explained in its announcement, apps are a reflection of culture. And this year, they reflected people’s focus on self-care and mental health, remote work and learning, staying connected with family and friends, interactive and social gaming, and more.

Apple selected a handful of apps to reflect these “app trends,” including self-care app Shine, remote learning app Explain Everything Whiteboard, family messaging app Caribu, charitable giving app SharetheMeal and the revamped Pokémon GO, which shifted to support indoor gaming.

“This year, more than ever before, some of our most creative and connected moments happened in apps. This was thanks to the amazing work of developers who introduced fresh, helpful app experiences throughout the year,” said Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow, in a statement. “Around the world, we saw remarkable efforts from so many developers, and these Best of 2020 winners are 15 outstanding examples of that innovation,” he added.

This year’s “Best of” winners will receive the first-ever physical App Store Best of 2020 award, featuring the App Store logo set into 100% recycled aluminum, with the winner’s name on the side.

Apple also unveiled the most downloaded apps and games of the year, which, unlike its “best of” editorial selections, are a showcase of real consumer demand.

Not surprisingly, these lists included remote work must-haves like Zoom and Gmail; a number of escapist games and, not coincidentally, pandemic simulator Plague, Inc.; the viral hit Among Us! ,which even AOC live-streamed; kids’ “metaverse” platforms like Minecraft and Roblox; and the usual set of top social apps — this year led by TikTok, not a Facebook-owned app.

The most-downloaded apps and games of 2020 were, as follows:

Top Free iPhone Apps

1. ZOOM Cloud Meetings
2. TikTok
3. Disney+
4. YouTube
5. Instagram
6. Facebook
7. Snapchat
8. Messenger
9. Gmail
10. Cash App

Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. TouchRetouch
2. Procreate Pocket
3. Dark Sky Weather
4. Facetune
5. HotSchedules
6. AutoSleep Track Sleep
7. The Wonder Weeks
8. SkyView
9. Shadowrocket
10. Sky Guide

Top Free iPhone Games

1. Among Us!
2. Call of Duty: Mobile
3. Roblox
4. Subway Surfers
5. Ink Inc. – Tattoo Drawing
6. Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game
7. Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles
8. Brain Out
9. Coin Master
10. Cube Surfer!

Top Paid iPhone Games

1. Minecraft
2. Plague Inc.
3. Heads Up!
4. Monopoly
5. Bloons TD6
6. Geometry Dash
7. NBA 2K20
8. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
9. The Game of Life
10. True Skate

Top Free iPad Apps

1. ZOOM Cloud Meetings
2. Disney+
3. YouTube
4. Netflix
5. Google Chrome
6. TikTok
7. Amazon Prime Video
8. Gmail
9. Hulu
10. Google Classroom

Top Paid iPad Apps

1. Procreate
2. GoodNotes 5
3. Notability
4. Duet Display
5. Teach Your Monster
6. LumaFusion
7. Affinity Designer
8. Toca Hair Salon 3
   9: Toca Life: Hospital
9. Toca Kitchen 2

Top Free iPad Games

1. Among Us!
2. Roblox
3. Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game
4. Ink Inc. – Tattoo Drawing
5. Call of Duty: Mobile
6. Subway Surfers
7. Dancing Road: Color Ball Run!
8. Tiles Hop – EDM Rush
9. Mario Kart Tour
10. Save The Girl!

Top Paid iPad Games

1. Minecraft
2. Monopoly
3. Bloons TD 6
4. Plague Inc.
5. Geometry Dash
6. The Game of Life
7. Five Nights at Freddy’s
8. Human: Fall Flat
9. Stardew Valley
10. Terraria

Top Arcade Games

1. Sneaky Sasquatch
2. Hot Lava
3. Skate City
4. Sonic Racing
5. PAC-MAN Party Royale
6. SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit
7. Oceanhorn 2
8. Crossy Road Castle
9. WHAT THE GOLF?
10. LEGO Brawls

 

News: Extra Crunch membership now available to readers in Israel

• December 2, 2020
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We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch memberships are now available in Israel. That adds to our existing support in: United States Canada Argentina, Brazil, Mexico UK and select European countries Australia Sign up for Extra Crunch membership here. Use the code ISRAEL122020 during checkout for an additional 25% off an annual or 2-year plan.

We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch memberships are now available in Israel. That adds to our existing support in:

• United States
• Canada
• Argentina, Brazil, Mexico
• UK and select European countries
• Australia

Sign up for Extra Crunch membership here.

Use the code ISRAEL122020 during checkout for an additional 25% off an annual or 2-year plan. The discount code expires on December 11, 2020.

Israel has always been of interest to TechCrunch. It’s home to one of the hottest startup scenes in the world with endless successful companies emerging from the region. From 2018 to 2019, over $1.4B in funding went to Israeli cybersecurity startups. Startups like Check Point, CyberX, and Illusive Networks have helped reimagine cybersecurity, while companies like Lemonade have disrupted the insurance industry. Whether it’s robotics or hardware startups, there’s no shortage of diverse interest with Israeli startups.

We’ve also had the pleasure of hosting several in-person events in Tel Aviv over the years, and we’ve loved meeting the talented startup founders and investors in the region. There are a number of reasons to be optimistic about the future of the startup scene here, but the passion and enthusiasm of the founders in Israel is near the top of the list. 

Thanks to everyone who voted on where to expand. If you’d like to see Extra Crunch memberships available in your country, let us know here.

Join Extra Crunch by heading here.

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Extra Crunch is a membership program from TechCrunch that helps you spot technology trends and opportunities, build better startups, and stay connected. It features thousands of articles, including weekly investor surveys, daily private market analysis, and expert interviews on fundraising, growth, monetization, and other work topics.

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Don’t forget to use the code ISRAEL122020 during checkout for an extra 25% off an annual or 2-year plan. The discount code expires on December 11, 2020.

News: Apple’s MagSafe Duo charger is now available

• December 2, 2020
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Back in October Apple announced the MagSafe Duo, a folding travel charger capable of charging both the iPhone and either an Apple Watch or AirPods simultaneously/wirelessly. In an unusual move, the company didn’t specify exactly when it’d start shipping — or even when it’d go up for sale. Some rumors suggested late December, while others

Back in October Apple announced the MagSafe Duo, a folding travel charger capable of charging both the iPhone and either an Apple Watch or AirPods simultaneously/wirelessly. In an unusual move, the company didn’t specify exactly when it’d start shipping — or even when it’d go up for sale. Some rumors suggested late December, while others were uncertain it would even make it out before the end of the year. When was this thing actually going to be released?

The answer, it seems, is today. The MagSafe Duo just appeared on Apple’s own store and, with delivery estimates as soon as this week, it looks like they’re shipping them immediately.

TechCrunch Editor-In-Chief Matthew Panzarino gave the charger a spin a few weeks ago, calling it “useful, but expensive and underwhelming” while noting that it feels like something that should cost around $70 rather than $129.

 

News: Longtime investor and operator Adam Nash says he just launched a new fintech startup

• December 2, 2020
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Adam Nash, a Silicon Valley-born-and-bred operator and investor, is back at it again. Today, on his personal blog, he announced that he has started a consumer fintech company that has already garnered initial funding from Ribbit Capital, along with other “friends and angels” who appear to have also pitched into the round, including Box CEO

Adam Nash, a Silicon Valley-born-and-bred operator and investor, is back at it again.

Today, on his personal blog, he announced that he has started a consumer fintech company that has already garnered initial funding from Ribbit Capital, along with other “friends and angels” who appear to have also pitched into the round, including Box CEO Aaron Levie, Mighty Networks founder Gina Bianchini, Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra, and Amy Chang, who sold her startup Accompany to Cisco in 2018.

Nash didn’t reveal many details in the post or later on Twitter, saying he’ll have more to say when the company is closer to launching. All we really know at this point is that he cofounded the company with Alejandro Crosa, an Argentinian software engineer who most recently spent five months at Slack but logged more than three years at both Twitter and LinkedIn before that.

Nash said on Twitter that the two met at LinkedIn, where Nash was himself VP of product management for four years beginning in 2007. It’s a good detail to know, considering that Nash has logged time at a wide variety of tech outfits over the years, making it hard to guess at whom he knows and from where.

A computer science graduate of Stanford, where he later nabbed a master’s degree, Nash began his career interning at NASA, HP, and Trilogy before landing his first big job as a software engineer at Apple in 1996 (when former PepsiCo exec, John Sculley, was briefly running the place).

After moving on to a bubble-era company that no longer exists, Nash tried his hand at VC for the first time, joining Atlas Venture as an associate. To get more operating experience, he then jumped to eBay, where he was a director; LinkedIn, where he met Crosa; then Greylock, where he spent just over a year as an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) before joining the wealth-management startup Wealthfront as its president and CEO, a job that the company’s original CEO and founder, Andy Rachleff, reclaimed in 2016.

Nash didn’t disappear from the scene. Instead, he rejoined Greylock as an EIR for another year before joining Dropbox shortly after it went public in 2018 as its VP of product and growth, leaving that post back in February to start his own thing, he said at the time.

That Nash would start a fintech company specifically isn’t surprising, considering his involvement with Wealthfront, as well as some of the personal investments he has made in recent years.

In 2018, for example, he wrote a check to LearnLux, a five-year-old, Boston-based educational startup that helps employees better understand their 401k, health savings accounts, and stock options. He is also an investor in Human Interest, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that offers automated, paperless 401(k) plans.

Nash is also riding a very big wave.  According to Pitchbook, consumer fintech is on pace to attract a record amount of venture funding in 2020, at least in North America and Europe.

We’ll let you know more about what Nash is building as soon as he’s ready to share more. The little that Nash is saying publicly for now is that he and Crosa believe there is “still a lot more to do in consumer fintech, and that through software we can help bring purpose to the way people approach their financial lives.”

News: Massachusetts lawmakers vote to pass a statewide police ban on facial recognition

• December 2, 2020
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Massachusetts lawmakers have voted to pass a new police reform bill that will ban police departments and public agencies from using facial recognition technology across the state. The bill was passed by both the state’s House and Senate on Tuesday, a day after senior lawmakers announced an agreement that ended months of deadlock. The police

Massachusetts lawmakers have voted to pass a new police reform bill that will ban police departments and public agencies from using facial recognition technology across the state.

The bill was passed by both the state’s House and Senate on Tuesday, a day after senior lawmakers announced an agreement that ended months of deadlock.

The police reform bill also bans the use of chokeholds and rubber bullets, and limits the use of chemical agents like tear gas, and also allows police officers to intervene to prevent the use of excessive and unreasonable force. But the bill does not remove qualified immunity for police, a controversial measure that shields serving police from legal action for misconduct, following objections from police groups.

Lawmakers brought the bill to the state legislature in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, since charged with his murder.

Critics have for years complained that facial recognition technology is flawed, biased, and disproportionately misidentifies people and communities of color. But the bill grants police an exception to run facial recognition searches against the state’s driver’s license database with a warrant. In granting that exception, the state will have to publish annual transparency figures on the number of searches made by officers.

The Massachusetts Senate voted 28-12 to pass, and the House voted 92-67. The bill will now be sent to Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker for his signature.

In the absence of privacy legislation from the federal government, laws curtailing the use of facial recognition are popping up on a state and city level. The patchwork nature of that legislation means that state and city laws have room to experiment, creating an array of blueprints for future laws that can be replicated elsewhere.

Portland, Oregon passed a broad ban on facial recognition tech this September. The ban, one of the most aggressive in the nation, blocks city bureaus from using the technology but will also prohibit private companies from deploying facial recognition systems in public spaces. Months of clashes between protesters and aggressive law enforcement in that city raised the stakes on Portland’s ban.

Earlier bans in Oakland, San Francisco, and Boston focused on forbidding their city governments from using the technology but, like Massachusetts, stopped short of limiting its use by private companies. San Francisco’s ban passed in May of last year, making the international tech hub the first major city to ban the use of facial recognition by city agencies and police departments.

At the same time that cities across the U.S. are acting to limit the creep of biometric surveillance, those same systems are spreading at the federal level. In August, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a contract for access to a facial recognition database created by Clearview AI, a deeply controversial company that scrapes facial images from online sources, including social media sites.

While most activism against facial recognition only pertains to local issues, at least one state law has proven powerful enough to make waves on a national scale. In Illinois, the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has ensnared major tech companies including Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet for training facial recognition systems on Illinois residents without permission.

News: Virgin Galactic plans first rocket-powered test flight from New Mexico for next week

• December 1, 2020
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Virgin Galactic has revealed the flight window for the first rocket-powered flight of its VSS Unity spacecraft from the shiny new Spaceport America in New Mexico. The ship could be in the air as early as December 11. This flight will be the third for Unity out of the future passenger spaceport, but the last

Virgin Galactic has revealed the flight window for the first rocket-powered flight of its VSS Unity spacecraft from the shiny new Spaceport America in New Mexico. The ship could be in the air as early as December 11.

This flight will be the third for Unity out of the future passenger spaceport, but the last two have been gliding flights, not propulsive ones. This will be the first time Unity has hit the throttle in nearly two years — back when it touched the edge of space at something like Mach 2.9.

Since then the company and its aircraft have moved home, from Mojave, California to the spaceport in New Mexico, where it hopes eventually passengers will come and lounge before taking off on a brief visit to space.

The glides, in which Unity is taken to a high altitude by a carrier craft, the VMS Eve, and let go to perform a controlled descent to Earth, show that everything is bolted on tightly and ready for the more substantial rigors of rocket thrust.

Originally this powered flight was intended to happen a bit earlier in the year, but COVID-19-related precautions led to delays. But weather permitting, next week should see Unity flying again.

This flight won’t be strictly for testing purposes, though: It will be taking up several payloads under NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, which contracts with smaller launch providers to perform experiments in and near space. Other aspiring space travel companies, like Blue Origin, have also taken up payloads for brief visits to the edge of the atmosphere.

Of course COVID-19 is still a serious issue, so Virgin Galactic is limiting exposure by minimizing people on site: no media or guests, only essential personnel.

News: Equity Shot: Salesforce’s $27.7 billion-dollar Slack message

• December 1, 2020
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Welcome to an Equity Shot all about the huge, and hugely interesting Salesforce -Slack deal, in which the enterprise social company will be subsumed for the mere price of $27.7 billion. TechCrunch has notes on the deal here,

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Welcome to an Equity Shot all about the huge, and hugely interesting Salesforce -Slack deal, in which the enterprise social company will be subsumed for the mere price of $27.7 billion.

TechCrunch has notes on the deal here, and on what Salesforce expects the acquisition will do for its growth rate here.

Some of the drama, we admit, was removed when the deal was presaged several days ago, but that didn’t stop the Equity crew from having a lot to say on the matter. Here are some of the topics we discuss:

• How big is this deal, both literally and figuratively?
• We talk about the market reception and if the rumors correctly valued the deal
• Does Slack deserve snaps or just a simple pat on the back?
• What does the deal tells us about vertical SaaS tools?
• The COVID-19 effect on remote tools
• What does SoftBank have to do with this (and why does SoftBank always have something to do with everything)?
• And whole lot of conversation and discussion on Microsoft and its competitor

We are back in two days’ time, so don’t wander too far. Chat soon!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

News: Daily Crunch: Salesforce buys Slack for $27.7B

• December 1, 2020
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Salesforce announces its acquisition of Slack, Amazon brings the Mac mini to the cloud and Google Maps gets a newsfeed. This is your Daily Crunch for December 1, 2020. The big story: Salesforce buys Slack for $27.7B The acquisition, which was first reported last month, is now official. “This is a match made in heaven,”

Salesforce announces its acquisition of Slack, Amazon brings the Mac mini to the cloud and Google Maps gets a newsfeed. This is your Daily Crunch for December 1, 2020.

The big story: Salesforce buys Slack for $27.7B

The acquisition, which was first reported last month, is now official.

“This is a match made in heaven,” said Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff. “Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.”

This cash-and-stock deal should make Salesforce a more serious competitor in the enterprise communication market. It also seems that Slack (which went public last year) was an obvious target for a takeover, due to an underwhelming stock price and a net loss of $147.6 million during the two quarters ending on July 31 of this year.

The tech giants

AWS brings the Mac mini to its cloud — This was just one of the announcements that Amazon Web Services made today at its re:Invent conference.

Google Maps takes on Facebook with launch of its own news feed — The feed is designed to make it easier to find the most recent news and recommendations from trusted local sources.

Facebook’s self-styled ‘oversight’ board selects first cases, most dealing with hate speech — The Facebook-funded body that the tech giant set up to distance itself from tricky content moderation decisions has announced the first set of cases it will consider.

Startups, funding and venture capital

SoftBank takes a $690M stake in cloud-based Swedish customer engagement company Sinch — Sinch provides cloud-based “omnichannel” voice, video and messaging services to help enterprises communicate with customers.

Voi, the European ‘micromobility’ rental company, raises $160M additional equity and debt funding — Voi says the new funding will be used to invest in technology development, fuel growth in current Voi markets and bring its latest e-scooter model to more cities.

Floww raises $6.7M for its data-driven marketplace matching founders with investors, based on merit — Having made more than 160 investments himself, founder Martijn De Wever says he recognized the need for a platform connecting investors and startups.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Bottom-up SaaS: A framework for mapping pricing to customer value — For the first time, individual employees are influencing the tooling decisions of their companies.

Who’s building the grocery store of the future? — Startups offering cashierless checkout, software analytics and robotics will clean up on aisle five.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

China’s Chang’e-5 lunar lander successfully lands on the moon — China’s Chang’e-5 mission will be the third ever to bring back soil or rock samples from the moon.

US shopping app downloads on Black Friday reached a record 2.8M installs — Many U.S. consumers spent this year’s Black Friday sales event shopping from home on mobile devices.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: Lightspeed acquires restaurant software company Upserve for $430M

• December 1, 2020
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Lightspeed POS just announced the acquisition of Upserve, expanding Lightspeed’s presence in the restaurant industry. The company already offers cloud-based point-of-sale software for restaurants and other businesses. It went public in Canada last year before recently debuting on the New York Stock Exchange and acquiring another point-of-sale company, ShopKeep, for $440 million. The Upserve acquisition is

Lightspeed POS just announced the acquisition of Upserve, expanding Lightspeed’s presence in the restaurant industry.

The company already offers cloud-based point-of-sale software for restaurants and other businesses. It went public in Canada last year before recently debuting on the New York Stock Exchange and acquiring another point-of-sale company, ShopKeep, for $440 million.

The Upserve acquisition is similarly sized — Lightspeed will pay $123 million in cash, along with stock that will bring the total deal size to around $430 million.

Upserve was founded back in 2009 as Swipely, one of several startups encouraging users to share their purchase information with friends. It shifted its offerings to business tools around payments, marketing and loyalty, eventually rebranding as Upserve as it became increasingly focused on the restaurant market. It also raised funding from Vista Equity Partners.

According to the announcement, Upserve brought in $40 million in revenue during the 12-month period ending on September 30. The deal is also supposed to grow Lightspeed’s footprint by 7,000 locations.

“Combining forces with Upserve is a strategic next-step in Lightspeed’s vision of providing the most advanced commerce platform to high-performing businesses around the world,” said Lightspeed founder and CEO Dax Dasilva in a statement. “We believe this acquisition will accelerate the product innovation that has enabled Lightspeed customers to tackle the greatest challenge to their industry in decades and will add exceptional leadership to our teams in anticipation of the economic recovery of the global hospitality industry.”

The announcement also claims that the combination of Lightspeed and Upserve’s teams and technologies will “enable the industry to more easily navigate the new dining needs made permanent by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

News: Elon Musk would consider having Tesla acquire a legacy automaker

• December 1, 2020
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Elon Musk would consider leveraging Tesla’s mega $554 billion market cap to buy a legacy automaker, but only if it was on friendly terms, the billionaire entrepreneur said Tuesday in a wide-ranging interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. Musk, who received an award Tuesday from the media giant, discussed his various interests and businesses,

Elon Musk would consider leveraging Tesla’s mega $554 billion market cap to buy a legacy automaker, but only if it was on friendly terms, the billionaire entrepreneur said Tuesday in a wide-ranging interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.

Musk, who received an award Tuesday from the media giant, discussed his various interests and businesses, notably SpaceX and Tesla, both of which he leads.

Döpfner noted that Tesla’s valuation far exceeds the market cap of incumbent automakers like BMW, Daimler and VW, which along with others in the industry once dismissed Musk’s ability to make electric vehicles mainstream. When asked if it would be a serious option to buy one of the legacy automakers, Musk said it was possible, but only under certain conditions.

“Well, I think we’re definitely not going to launch a hostile takeover,” Musk said. “So I suppose if there was a friendly one, if somebody said, ‘Hey, we think it would be a good idea to merge with Tesla,’ we certainly could have that conversation. But, you know, we don’t want it to be a hostile takeover sort of situation.”

Tesla today sits in an enviable position — although Musk said once again that its share price is too high. The company, which will join the S&P 500 Index on December 21, is now the most valuable automaker in the world, surpassing rivals that produce far more vehicles annually.

Investors have sunk money into Tesla shares largely because they view it more as a technology company than an automaker, even though the vast majority of its revenues today come from car sales.

Musk noted that automakers largely dismissed Tesla in its early days.

“When we first unveiled the Roadster in 2007, I mean, it was just basically, they just said, ‘Oh, well, you’re basically a bunch of fools,’ ” Musk remarked, adding that rivals are now far friendlier than in the past.