Jeremy Clarkson has shared how he feared that his feud with Elon Musk could have led to death by cyber-taxi.
The former Grand Tour host, 66, shares a long-standing rivalry with the carmaker turned controversial political personality, 55.
It was initially sparked by a 2008 Top Gear review of Tesla’s Roadster – with Clarkson taking umbrage at the alleged 16-hour charge time and two of the vehicles breaking down on the day of the shoot.
This, it’s believed, made an enemy of Musk, whose team at Tesla tried (and failed) to sue the BBC for libel.
Clarkson has since described Musk as an ‘idiot,’ while taking great pleasure in the drubbing he’s received from those less enamoured with his political meddling… and the vandalisation of his cars.
All of which would explain why Clarkson might have felt that Musk was trying to kill him when he became trapped in a Tesla Cybercab.
In his latest column for The Times, Clarkson revealed he’d been testing Tesla’s driverless vehicles while in Austin, Texas.
He went on to describe his frustration at being assigned a Cybercab which stopped around the corner from where he’d been waiting.
After climbing into the car, further frustration awaited when it failed to set off on its journey – forcing Clarkson to order a replacement car.
After ‘half an hour of swearing’ (from Jezza, not the car), the new Cybercab arrived to pick Clarkson up… but further disaster was in store when they approached the drop-off point.
It passed several places it could have stopped at, and Clarkson said the contraption ran red lights and hit the brakes for a non-existent pedestrian.
He claimed it then got into a ‘big debate with an autonomous shopping trolley about whose right of way it was.’
During this time, Clarkson had grown increasingly nervous.
‘It was no longer listening to me. It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t open the doors. And I began to worry,’ he explained.
‘Elon and I had a bit of a falling-out a while back, and I thought it might be taking me to the room where he develops lasers.
‘”No, Mr. Clarkson. I expect you to die”,’ he joked.
Thankfully, Clarkson did survive, and the Cybercab eventually dropped him off at his destination.
‘But I must admit that for ten minutes or so, I was a bit worried because I was in a car that was driving itself while seemingly having some kind of electronic hot flush. And there was absolutely nothing I could do,’ he finished.
When asked about Clarkson’s Top Gear review by Newsnight in 2003, Musk described himself as ‘a great fan of the BBC.’
He also said that Top Gear was ‘more about entertainment than truth,’ adding: ‘I think most people realise that, but not everyone.’
Musk continued: ‘I’ve actually enjoyed a lot of his shows. It’s not as though I just hate Top Gear or anything. He can be very funny and irreverent, but he does have a strong bias against electric cars.’
In 2025, Clarkson reflected on the lawsuit, writing in his Times column: ‘He lost the case, and the appeal, and he’s never really got over it.
‘He still claims I was biased and that we pretended his car had broken down when it hadn’t. Even though it had.
‘I should really have sued him back, but I feared he’d call me a paedo, so instead I just waited on the river bank for his body to float past. And now it has.’
In a case of history repeating itself, Musk’s compatriot, President Donald Trump, is also attempting to sue the BBC for ‘anywhere between $1billion and $5billion’.
He alleges that the broadcaster ‘intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively’ edited his words in a Panorama documentary which aired in 2024.
Clarkson hasn’t spoken about the lawsuit, but he has described the US President as ‘a bit weird’ in the past.
He upped his game more recently, calling Trump ‘sick’ for his response to the death of 24-year-old William Chapman, who suffered a tiger mauling after climbing into its enclosure.
After footage emerged of the horrific encounter, Trump posted the video with the caption: ‘Don’t ever mess with nature.’
He also shared an AI post of himself fighting the tiger, set to the tune of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
In a subsequent column, Clarkson wrote: ‘Then along came Donald Trump. Now I know he puts his foot in it on an almost daily basis, but to upload some AI footage of him successfully wrestling a tiger is beyond the pale. It’s sick.’
