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Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#2

Post by Sgt_Apone »

This tactic allegedly resulted, this person said, in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in phantom revenue. He added that more than a dozen people reported the practice to the relevant human resources representatives, and CEO Elon Musk himself, who never replied.

So employees were pumping up projected sales figures for (at least) personal benefit in the form of bonuses. What happens when these figures don't materialize?

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#4

Post by jerf »

Kinda hope these accusations are mostly true in a way, since Ars doesn't seem to show any compunction about naming names filed in a lawsuit. Would suck for the named persons if it turns out to be entirely false. I miss when journalists at least pretended to have standards.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#5

Post by shafyy »

"This tactic allegedly resulted, this person said, in tens of hundreds of millions of dollars in phantom revenue."

SolarCity had revenues of ~$480M in 2016 [0]. "Tens of hundreds of millions" would mean billions of dollars of phantom revenue. Even if that fake revenue would be distributed over a couple of years, it would have been a significant proportion of SolarCity's revenue. Just seems unrealistic that the SEC or any other agency didn't realize that.

Or what do they mean by "Tens of hundreds of millions?". Did they mean to write "Tens OR hundreds of millions?". Even then the same logic applies.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/505770/revenue-of-solarc...

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#6

Post by shafyy »

jerf wrote: post #4

Kinda hope these accusations are mostly true in a way, since Ars doesn't seem to show any compunction about naming names filed in a lawsuit. Would suck for the named persons if it turns out to be entirely false. I miss when journalists at least pretended to have standards.

It does seem like the involved persons' names are public, no?

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#9

Post by adamson »

shafyy wrote: post #5

"This tactic allegedly resulted, this person said, in tens of hundreds of millions of dollars in phantom revenue." SolarCity had revenues of ~$480M in 2016 [0]. "Tens of hundreds of millions" would mean billions of dollars of phantom revenue. Even if that fake revenue would be distributed over a couple of years, it would have been a significant proportion of SolarCity's revenue. Just seems unrealistic that the SEC or…

That construction is so weird that I'm going to assume it was a typo and that they meant "tens or hundreds"

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#10

Post by redlorry »

shafyy wrote: post #5

"This tactic allegedly resulted, this person said, in tens of hundreds of millions of dollars in phantom revenue." SolarCity had revenues of ~$480M in 2016 [0]. "Tens of hundreds of millions" would mean billions of dollars of phantom revenue. Even if that fake revenue would be distributed over a couple of years, it would have been a significant proportion of SolarCity's revenue. Just seems unrealistic that the SEC or…

I'm assuming 'tens or hundreds of millions'
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