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

Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 152 posts

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#101

Post by thanksforthe42 »

chimen wrote: post #74
GoToRO wrote: post #68

Good engineers must learn that while they spent the time learning their skills, other people spent that time learning how to steal others’ people work. If you are really good, you must start your own company. Much harder, I know.

And a good engineer usually does not make a good salesperson. Starting a company does not make a good engineer better nor does it guarantee a better path in one's career. On the contrary I would dare say.

I've been called a good Engineer. All my companies I started failed.

This hits close to home.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#102

Post by lsaferite »

giantg2 wrote: post #86
endymi0n wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give you an executive's perspective on this one: I'm saying the same to my employees (and I mean it). But there are two types of ways this happens in reality: Case 1: An actual smart and caring employee bypasses the chain to give me evidence of a manager not acting in the companys interest. Usually that's not the first indication of such a thing and listening around reaffirms the conclusion quickly. The manager is…

My specific instance was that I was the application security champion for a critical application application that had a SQL injection vulnerability (with full schema owner privileges!), but lower-level management wasn't making it a priority and didn't even assign any resources to remediate the issue. So I went to explain the issue to the department head because he was the owner of the application. As an ASC I answer…

Reading your description seems like it was squarely in the GPs Case #1, not Case #2.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#103

Post by thanksforthe42 »

The fantasy that capitalism would punish businesses for treating employees poorly or people would stop buying low quality products is disappearing.

Marketing tricks are the most important thing in the business world as shown by Tesla, Jeep, Apple, and Nintendo.

Not that I buy their stuff, but some people still do.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#104

Post by giantg2 »

lsaferite wrote: post #102
giantg2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My specific instance was that I was the application security champion for a critical application application that had a SQL injection vulnerability (with full schema owner privileges!), but lower-level management wasn't making it a priority and didn't even assign any resources to remediate the issue. So I went to explain the issue to the department head because he was the owner of the application. As an ASC I answer…

Reading your description seems like it was squarely in the GPs Case #1, not Case #2.

#1 implies the firing of a bad manager, which didn't happen. It also requires others in the group to back me up (as a security concern very few people knew).

#2 seemed more fitting since no action was taken. And it resulted in me leaving that area of the company (voluntarily thankfully).

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#105

Post by etc-hosts »

justanotherhn wrote: post #98
chongli wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why that's so amusing. The justice system only requires the judiciary to be impartial in order to serve the public good effectively. Plaintiffs and defendants can be as biased as they want. Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) successfully sued Gawker with the backing of investor Peter Thiel, who had a well-known grudge against them. That doesn't take away from the fact that Gawker grossly invaded people's privacy…

I find it amusing because they find someone who has some sort of a problem with tesla and make them the jesus of their crusade against that company. "How could Elon (or Tesla) have done this?" in order to sway public opinion. They did this with when the plant sabotage employee a few years back, the diver guy who Elon called a pedo and every self proclaimed "whistleblower" as far as I can remember from 2015 when this…

It is pretty weird that Musk repeatedly insisted on calling the experienced well respected diver a sex criminal, and faced zero consequences for this.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#106

Post by josefresco »

cinbun8 wrote: post #80
zaroth wrote: post #7

TFA is kind of a strange re-telling of an interesting story. It came into the public view after an article from Inc. about Musk's famous email telling people to break with the chain of command. [1] The HuffPo posted an article responding to Inc raising Balan's concerns [2]; > At the time Balan was working on the interiors design team at Tesla, where she identified and “tried … to solve two engineering issues,” she wr…

Recording internal meetings to raise an issue isn't the best way to deal with the situation. I'm not surprised she was let go. The company probably saw this as dangerous behavior.

She only started recording meetings to collect evidence after being "bullied, humiliated, demoted and retaliated against in the most horrible way possible."

Seems ... justified.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#107

Post by justanotherhn »

etc-hosts wrote: post #105
justanotherhn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amusing because they find someone who has some sort of a problem with tesla and make them the jesus of their crusade against that company. "How could Elon (or Tesla) have done this?" in order to sway public opinion. They did this with when the plant sabotage employee a few years back, the diver guy who Elon called a pedo and every self proclaimed "whistleblower" as far as I can remember from 2015 when this…

It is pretty weird that Musk repeatedly insisted on calling the experienced well respected diver a sex criminal, and faced zero consequences for this.

He faced a tone of consequences, just not criminal or civil charges in a court.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#108

Post by lazide »

vmception wrote: post #61
bambax wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inadmissible in court, but you can always leak to the press and see what happens.

Not only inadmissible, but can incur criminal liability as well, such as in California. With criminal statutes, it significantly raises the bar about how to "leak" something to the press, the press who needs to verify the source and can be subpoena'd for records.

It's actually a bit backwards.

A private person recording someone illegally is a crime. In some circumstances (for instance to prove a witness in lying), it can still be admissable. [ref https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/secret-recording-con....]

Now is it is worth admitting to a crime that can carry fines of up to $2,500 and/or imprisonment for up to a year (misdemeanor) is a hefty question. In addition, the violator may be subject to civil liability in the amount of $5,000 or three times the amount of any actual damages sustained as a result.

If this was a lawsuit due to serious, career ending malfeasance against you, where a key witness would be trivially proven a liar and you could end up with millions in a settlement? Maybe? Could they turn around and sue you for 3x the settlement? Sounds like you'd want to talk to a lawyer first.

Not happening most of the time though.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#109

Post by Traster »

clort wrote: post #10

There are lots of problems here and it seems to me that Tesla is being a bully. Cristina Balan has a fundraiser page, at https://www.gofundme.com/f/a86fmm-fighting-tesla-for-defamin... and there is some text there from her, setting out some facts as she has seen them.

Bullying is when I push you over and take your milk. Tesla isn't a bully, Tesla has been part of the corporate capture of the American legal system, the CEO can literally call you a pedofile and be found not guilty of libel. If you're not powerful enough you can't even get a lawyer to represent you.

Re: Former Tesla engineer sues for defamation

#110

Post by omarforgotpwd »

clort wrote: post #10

There are lots of problems here and it seems to me that Tesla is being a bully. Cristina Balan has a fundraiser page, at https://www.gofundme.com/f/a86fmm-fighting-tesla-for-defamin... and there is some text there from her, setting out some facts as she has seen them.

Cristina and Russ Mitchell and are both part of the TSLAQ short selling / anti-Tesla hate group. They've bullied and victimized dozens of Tesla customers in their quest to smear Tesla and Musk. Just my perspective on what I've seen following these people for a few years. They also failed to mention that Cristina already lost the lawsuit once. Now she is appealing, which she has the right to do. I wish her the best of luck in resolving this in a way that allows her to move on from what happened.
Post reply on HN