Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 399 posts

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#111

Post by kec »

nostrademons wrote: post #97

Imagine a private company with ballistic missiles and submarines... I was musing the other day that Elon Musk may be planning to run for president. Why? Well, if there's one thing that 2016 showed us, it's that the road to the White House runs through snubbing Wall Street, calling the press a bunch of boring liars, accusing your opponents of pedophilia, making bizarre incoherent tweet storms in the middle of the nigh…

Elon is not a natural born citizen of the US (He's South African), he is ineligible for the presidency.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#113

Post by freerobby »

abalone wrote: post #69
harryh wrote: post #4

There are a lot of things to respect about Musk. But he lied on twitter in a direct effort to cause financial harm to people shorting Tesla stock. You can't do that. He should go to jail.

This is a massive oversimplification. Musk may be in peril but this is not as cut-and-dried a case of fraud like you make it seem. Consider this recent comment from the SEC: “When you talk about fraud,” [Jina Choi of the SEC] answered, “you’re talking about a state of mind, you’re talking about mens rea. We call it scienter. You have to do something with intentionality. The idea of just making a misstatement doesn’t…

He doesn't even need to do that! The feds need to prove he never intended to take Tesla private, or that "funding secured" was somehow isolated from those intentions and tweeted disingenuously to move the stock price. Good luck with that -- all evidence is to the contrary (talks had taken place and the Saudis have entered the market in earnest, and relevant emails had been sent out across the entire company). It was a dumb tweet for a lot of reasons, and it's reasonable to subpoena emails and investigate (and obviously civil claims and losses are another story), but dwelling on "fraud" of all wrongs here is downright silly.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#114

Post by crankylinuxuser »

SeanAppleby wrote: post #31
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "Opening a civil and criminal investigation" without due process, also direct manipulation as well? Surely, prior to a fault/guilty verdict, running someone through the mud is furtherance of that, no? This reminds me of "perp watches" posed by police departments on Facebook and twitter. No charges, but arrested - and you get to live in the newspaper and social media regardless if you are exonerated. Cause, publ…

Sure, publicity around early investigations in general has inevitable externalities on people who might still be innocent, but how do you think you reach a verdict without going through an investigation?

There's a difference in:

"We conduct investigations on a regular basis on a multitude of people over possible perceived wrongdoings."

-vs-

"We are conducting a thorough investigation on Musk, Tesla, SpaceX because we believe he did something wrong."

The first is a non-answer, and puts no blame anywhere. Its their reason to be, so its unsurprising. The second statement itself changes the market the very same way he was claimed to do, and paints him and the companies in a bad light, prior to any finding of fact.

I'm arguing for the defense and protection of the accused. By the very definition, they are not guilty/liable UNTIL the court says they are. But this style of bandying around "We're INVESTIGATING ____" Only puts strong implicit blame and guilt on the accused.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#115

Post by camjohnson26 »

ebiggs wrote: post #102
x0x0 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the lawsuit for calling that diver in Thailand a pedo. Right or wrong (the dude certainly seems not to be a pedo), Musk is the ceo of a currently near-failing company unable to produce and deliver cars as promised. And a defamation suit is what he's spending his time on? I'd be livid were I an employee.

He's seeking just a mere $75k in damages.. there's no reason for Elon to not just pay that and move on, given lawyers would cost more. This frankly looks like Unsworth looking for a modest handout, betting that Musk wouldn't spend more money trying to prove he is in fact a pedo. On a totally unrelated note, how many child prostitutes could you buy with $75k? Just randomly curious.

That's not true, $75,000 is the minimum amount to make this a federal case so the lawsuit is just saying it was at least that. He'll almost certainly have to pay a lot more.

The actual lawsuit is damning: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4895828-2018-09-17-C...

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#116

Post by cycrutchfield »

scotchio wrote: post #81

Can anyone knowledgable of this kind of stuff comment on the likely outcome of the situation and scenarios (without sensationalizing)? If found guilty, not guilty, penalty (jail, fine, other), investigation time, length, impact on other companies like SpaceX, gravity/frequency of the event vs other companies / offenses, etc.?

The DOJ couldn’t even prosecute any major banks for the fraud that led to the financial collapse in 2008. That is how hard it is to prove criminal intent for white collar crimes.

At best, they settle with Musk for some financial penalty.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#117

Post by bdamm »

kec wrote: post #111
nostrademons wrote: post #97

Imagine a private company with ballistic missiles and submarines... I was musing the other day that Elon Musk may be planning to run for president. Why? Well, if there's one thing that 2016 showed us, it's that the road to the White House runs through snubbing Wall Street, calling the press a bunch of boring liars, accusing your opponents of pedophilia, making bizarre incoherent tweet storms in the middle of the nigh…

Elon is not a natural born citizen of the US (He's South African), he is ineligible for the presidency.

Didn't stop Ted Cruz from running, did it?

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#118

Post by refurb »

zwerdlds wrote: post #22
simias wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not super knowledgeable in the stock market, what would he have gained from destroying the shorts? I understand that shorts are effectively a bet that the stock will go down but do they actually damage the company in any way? At a glance it sounds like trying to break the thermometer because you think it's too cold out there, the stock wasn't at risk because of the shorts, instead there were shorts because some i…

Shorts drive the price down, making it more expensive for the company to borrow from the market by selling stock. They have to sell more shares to receive a similar amount.

Shorts drive the price down

Not on their own they don't. You can go and short Facebook right now and it won't move the price at all.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#119

Post by bduerst »

chollida1 wrote: post #5

The sad piece of karma in all of this is that Musk tweeted in an effort to destroy the shorts. His tweet turned out to: - give the shorts a big dip in his stock, - an investigation by the SEC - an investigation by the DOJ - the backing off of a deep pocketed investor in the Saudis - Him potentially being personally liable, which would mean having to step away from SpaceX and Tesla if he was found guilty of fraud. Thi…

>- the backing off of a deep pocketed investor in the Saudis

Musk is responsible for this because he actually rejected this deal, not because the Saudis were involved, but because it involved partnering with VW.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#120

Post by monocasa »

khamoud wrote: post #104
nostrademons wrote: post #97

Imagine a private company with ballistic missiles and submarines... I was musing the other day that Elon Musk may be planning to run for president. Why? Well, if there's one thing that 2016 showed us, it's that the road to the White House runs through snubbing Wall Street, calling the press a bunch of boring liars, accusing your opponents of pedophilia, making bizarre incoherent tweet storms in the middle of the nigh…

It'd be funny but since he was born in South Africa he's disqualified from running.

Ted Cruz was born in Canada. The naturalization requirement is a lot looser than you might think.
Post reply on HN