California Governor Gavin Newsom mocked Elon Musk for having his “lies” about a water shortage “exposed” during his own live-streamed briefing with a member of the Los Angeles fire command team, citing criticism of the city’s efforts to control raging wildfires in Los Angeles.
Musk initially criticized state officials on his social media platform X, claiming that the Los Angeles fire response was hampered by “bad governance at the state and local level that resulted in a shortage of water.”
On Sunday, however, Newsom responded by posting the final exchange in which Musk discussed the situation with a senior LA firefighter, claiming that “@ElonMusk was exposed by firefighters for his own lies.”
Musk began the 13-minute live stream by explaining that he had been asked to provide communications support for responding services via his Starlink satellite telecommunications technology. The firefighters explain their actions to date and the nature of the wildfires.
In the video shared by Newsom, Musk is seen questioning a firefighter about the water supply during the Palisades fire.
Musk inquired: “Was water available? I understand that wasn’t an issue in Malibu, right?”
The firefighter points to a map behind him and says calmly, “There was water; we have water reservoirs. For example, if one building is burning, we can flow 1000 gallons per minute on that building.”
He kept going: “The amount of water we’re flowing, there really is no water system that’s gonna keep that pace, so we have to bring in water tenders, which are these big water tanks, you know, 2500/3000-gallon trucks, and they’ll come in and that’s what we have to do to compensate.”
According to the firefighter: “[The Department of Water and Power] did a great job, they brought in big trucks for us and we used them as, basically, mobile hydrants.”
Musk follows up with a question: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but in Malibu there was no shortage of water, in the Palisades there was a shortage of water at a certain point, or is that not accurate?”
The firefighter explained, “We were flowing so much water that the system couldn’t handle it. It was overwhelming.”
Before ending the live stream, Musk said, “Okay. Alright. “That sounds good.”
