At least some of the ventilators Tesla CEO Elon Musk said were delivered to California hospitals are not ventilators, but are machines used to treat sleep apnea.
Politico cited Los Angeles County Department of Health Services director Christina Ghaly as saying Tesla, which manufactures and sells electric cars, delivered 100 bilevel positive airway pressure units last month as the state deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Some patients hospitalized with the virus need to be put on ventilators.
The devices Musk provided, Ghaly said, can reduce "the need for certain patients to be placed on mechanical ventilation."
"We are grateful to Tesla for their generous donation in support of patients with COVID-19," Ghaly said.
Politico noted that Tesla also gave the county 200 gallons of hand sanitizer and 860 face shields to protect healthcare personnel.
Musk promised last month to send more than 1,000 ventilators to California hospitals at no charge.
As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, Musk gave more than 20 devices to facilities in the San Francisco area — although it wasn't clear if those were ventilators or the same machines Los Angeles County received.
Musk got defensive this week when California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office told CNN it was not aware of Musk or Tesla delivering any ventilators to hospitals. Musk fired back with several tweets in which he tried to prove ventilators were delivered.
"Please fix this misunderstanding," he wrote in one tweet aimed at Newsom.
Musk also tweeted what appeared to be a March 27 email conversation between someone at Tesla and an official at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. The email subject mentioned ventilators, and the official said the devices "worked great during testing today. We will put these to use tomorrow!"
Musk also tweeted an image of what seemed to be a portion of a spreadsheet that listed hospitals and the number of "ventilators," as Musk wrote, Tesla sent to them.
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