Musk takes everything personally. Very personally.

Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press

I left out the part of the earnings call where Musk attacked journalists, whom he sees as compromising the safety of motorists by writing negative items about Tesla's Autopilot technology.

Musk does, in fact, believe that this semi-self-driving system saves lives, and over the long haul, he could be right. But that's assuming Autopilot evolves over time. At the moment, it's effectively just advanced cruise control.

"[I]t's really incredibly irresponsible of any journalists with integrity to write an article that would lead people to believe that autonomy is less safe," he said on the call. "Because people might actually turn it off, and then die. So anyway, I'm really upset by this."

Tesla has argued that Autopilot improves safety, but the US government has disputed Tesla's use of some statistics to support the claim.

Musk is entitled to his opinion, and he's entitled to be upset at journalists. But he shouldn't be telling them what to write about if they think Autopilot might be so oversold to the public that some drivers think it can provide a higher level of self-driving than it does.

There are times to take stuff personally, and times to accept that journalism doesn't care how you feel.