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

Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 254 posts

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#51

Post by ovi256 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #33
navigatesol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk is heavily involved in the engineering efforts at Tesla and SpaceX. Is there any evidence of this, outside of him personally claiming this to be the case?

Just go to Blind. He is doing micromanaging. Also he is ,,managing by Twitter''. Whether that is good or bad is not clear, but so far he has a great track record. Just look at the $35k Tesla that he pulled off by kicking out sales. A regular CEO wouldn't have done that. With all the chaos it has caused, Elon understands that at this point price is the most important part in the decision for buying a Tesla for lots of…

>Just go to Blind.

Can you do that without a tesla.com email address ?

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#52

Post by xiphias2 »

samirillian wrote: post #29

As a person who really wanted Musk to be an exception to the rule of shitty billionaires, this story really is the last nail in the coffin. Way too much moral casuistry you'd have to go through to justify or cast doubt on all of these insane stories.

I agree with you that he's not an exception, but at the same time I got a chronic sickness from the air pollution that's caused by oil and diesel car companies, and I know that millions of other people are dying, so I still think that other car company CEOs are even more shitty.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#53

Post by navigatesol »

hxegon wrote: post #30
navigatesol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk is heavily involved in the engineering efforts at Tesla and SpaceX. Is there any evidence of this, outside of him personally claiming this to be the case?

https://www.quora.com/Does-Elon-Musk-do-some-very-technical-... I'm too lazy to track down more right now. I don't know of anyone claiming (with evidence) that he doesn't. In his biography there's interviews with people inside and out of spacex/tesla talking about it that are pretty convincing.

That thread has a quote from an interview, and then a bunch of random people saying he does.

I already know the mythology surrounding his engineering credentials. But I think perpetuating it does a real disservice to the real engineers doing work on these products. Do people really think that a bright, "well read" physics undergraduate can lead the practical engineering work on rockets and cars? I find it hard to believe.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#54

Post by anewhnaccount2 »

xkjkls wrote: post #32
i_call_solo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is heavily involved in the engineering efforts at Tesla and SpaceX. Losing him would not be a good thing for these companies despite his public antics.

Is he? Musk has no engineering degree, he's never been the CTO of his companies, and most of his time seems to be spent on Twitter, dealing with media, and other PR things. I haven't seen any evidence that the engineering departments at either firm would be worse off without him.

He has a physics degree.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#55

Post by navigatesol »

xiphias2 wrote: post #33
navigatesol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk is heavily involved in the engineering efforts at Tesla and SpaceX. Is there any evidence of this, outside of him personally claiming this to be the case?

Just go to Blind. He is doing micromanaging. Also he is ,,managing by Twitter''. Whether that is good or bad is not clear, but so far he has a great track record. Just look at the $35k Tesla that he pulled off by kicking out sales. A regular CEO wouldn't have done that. With all the chaos it has caused, Elon understands that at this point price is the most important part in the decision for buying a Tesla for lots of…

I have no doubt he micromanages, but that's a long way from being "heavily involved" with the engineering of the products. In fact, it's the opposite, no?

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#56

Post by ucha »

zmarty wrote: post #49

Bloomberg conveniently left out the reason why "Tripp has since changed lawyers". It's because he published on Twitter a trove of confidential internal Tesla documents. Once he did that his lawyer knew they had no case anymore. Tripp only deleted the documents after his lawyer was able to get in touch with him. This showed that he did in fact access internal Tesla systems and he did in fact exfiltrate this informatio…

How do you know what happened between Tripp and his lawyer?

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#57

Post by memling »

drugme wrote: post #17
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article certainly makes those claims. But Bloomberg doesn’t seem to have any evidence of those things, beyond Tripp’s raw assertion that his friends didn’t make the call and he didn’t do what the lawsuit says. With no corroboration, why should we believe him over Tesla at this point?

With no corroboration, why should we believe him over Tesla at this point? Occam's Razor (and Tesla/Musks's record of erratic and vindictive behavior in other contexts) should provide ample basis for making that call.

> Occam's Razor

This seems like an objectively bad idea to me. I'm not a Tesla or Musk fan, and it seems plausible he could try to destroy a whistleblower.

Even so, "innocent until proven guilty" is the better standard. Occam's Razor is greatly influenced by our priors.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#58

Post by AndrewBissell »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #43

What I don't understand is why Bloomberg is not required to publish that they have any financial interest in Tesla. Bloomberg seems to only publish negative news about Tesla, and clearly has a bias, as if they hold or represent someone that holds a large short position. The story published by Bloomberg does not actually cite any sources, only what is already publicly known and what Tripp has personally claimed; and s…

This is absolute nonsense. Tom Randall, the Bloomberg reporter who created the Model 3 VIN tracker, is one of the most notorious pro-Tesla hacks on the beat. He pumped the NHTSA "Autopilot is 40% safer" nonsense statistic and has done nothing to correct the record after the analysis was shown to be horrendously flawed. He routinely writes articles and Twitter threads which are nothing more than regurgitations of Musk talking points.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#59

Post by coldtea »

xiphias2 wrote: post #52
samirillian wrote: post #29

As a person who really wanted Musk to be an exception to the rule of shitty billionaires, this story really is the last nail in the coffin. Way too much moral casuistry you'd have to go through to justify or cast doubt on all of these insane stories.

I agree with you that he's not an exception, but at the same time I got a chronic sickness from the air pollution that's caused by oil and diesel car companies, and I know that millions of other people are dying, so I still think that other car company CEOs are even more shitty.

It's not like Tesla is novel or unique or better at electric cars.

Conventional car companies have worked on electric cars, and have their own models for decades.

Tesla's unique proposition was about building an electric supercar (and even that is not working very well, profits wise).

They'll hardly be the one's replacing the mass oil and diesel cars with electric models...

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#60

Post by drugme »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #43

What I don't understand is why Bloomberg is not required to publish that they have any financial interest in Tesla. Bloomberg seems to only publish negative news about Tesla, and clearly has a bias, as if they hold or represent someone that holds a large short position. The story published by Bloomberg does not actually cite any sources, only what is already publicly known and what Tripp has personally claimed; and s…

There is no proof that Tesla invented the shooter story,

The recounting of events from the Sheriff involved clearly suggest otherwise.

Post reply on HN