Tech executive Elon Musk – the chief executive officer of Tesla and now the owner of X, formerly named Twitter – has rejected a partnership offer from perhaps the biggest ridesharing platform in the world, Uber.
But Uber is unfazed. Around the time when the bad news was heard, Uber had already been celebrating playfully in Japan. Here’s the scoop from Ridesharing Forum.
Musk rejects Uber’s partnership offer
Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, sat down in an interview with Bloomberg TV, where he revealed that Tesla has rejected a tie-up offer from the ride-hailing app, wherein, the electric vehicle brand would have provided Uber with robotaxis. The Uber CEO shared that Tesla is building the project alone.
“I’ve had conversations with him (Musk) at this point,” Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg correspondents in Miami before the weekend. “They want to build it alone, so to some extent in Austin, we and Waymo (Alphabet-owned) will be competing with Tesla when they launch. Life is long, but we would love to partner with them.”
The Bloomberg correspondents provided context as to why what would have been a fabulous partnership did not ensue. They said that Tesla rejected the partnership offer to help the company create competition for its rival in the autonomous vehicle market, just as how the Uber CEO pinpointed.
That’s all about Waymo, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. This American autonomous driving company, which has its headquarters in California, is a subsidiary of Alphabet. It focuses on merging the technology and automotive industries to create safe and autonomous driving technology.
“Waymo - formerly the Google self-driving car project – makes it safe and easy for people & things to get around with autonomous vehicles. Take a ride now,” Waymo described its brand as what’s indicated on its official website.
While Uber is saddened by the decision, the company is, of course, unfazed. It’s business as usual.
National Cat Day with Uber Japan
Around the same time when Khosrowshahi sat down in an interview with Bloomberg, think of time zones, Uber’s Japan department had been celebrating National Cat Day, and it was a feast.
Uber’s food delivery wing, Uber Eats, has teamed up with Special Australia, Special Japan, Whatever Tokyo, and EssenceMediacom to launch this project that advocated for pet owners to spend more quality time with their furry sons and daughters over the long weekend in the East Asian country.
To give you a background, Japan held a long weekend with National Cat Day last February 22nd and its national holiday yesterday, February 24th. To celebrate the occasion, Uber Eats Japan introduced the Uber Eats Pet Buttons for a limited time only.
These buttons are designed to playfully motivate pet owners to order food at home or wherever they are, without requesting a table in-restaurant, so they can bond more with their pets.
When pressed, the Uber Eats Japan Pet Buttons play the well-known phrase from campaigns that say, “Why not Uber Eats?” serving as an entertaining prompt for pet owners to stay in and maybe, share a meal with their cuddle-worthy friends.
“At Uber Eats, we know pets are a huge part of the family. Pets and Uber Eats have one thing in common… they want their humans to stay inside,” Uber Eats Japan’s brand marketing manager, Yasunari Aoyama pointed out.