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Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

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Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#101

Post by kube-system »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #72
kube-system wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, a huge number of (if not most) contracts contain agreements regarding future delivery of product or services. This is valid and normal arrangement. The contract is a promise to deliver that. If you don't deliver, you have breeched the contract.

Elon Musk signed contracts claiming he would deliver this in the future? There are verbal contracts, so what you're really saying was that he was in the room with each buyer, individually or with a group of them (such that he was aware of the identities of those he was contracting with), and made a legally binding verbal contract where he told them he would deliver these software features, under what conditions they…

I'm making a bit of a comparison, since the above was a pretty general statement. Yes, literally, marketing is generally not regarded as contract offers... but the rationale for laws prohibiting false advertising is that the product delivered should be the product promised. Technically the difference between whether something would be breach of contract or false advertising or fraud is a very fine line dependent on the specifics.

My point was just to say that "future promises" are not something that can just be disregarded.

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#102

Post by api »

marcusverus wrote: post #91
chollida1 wrote: post #6

This is about defrauding people who bought a tesla, not investors. > In 2020, Musk told a crowd in Shanghai that he remains “confident” that Tesla will achieve “basic functionality for level five autonomy this year,” referring to the SAE’s rankings of autonomy. Tesla’s technology, in 2024, is still at level 2. This reminds me alot of the Thernos case where she tried to make the case not about fraud but about an overl…

There is an obvious difference between lying and being wrong. Theranos claimed to already have created their magic machine, which was a blatant lie. They intentionally misled investors by pretending to put samples into a fake testing machine, secretly removing the samples to test them in a lab elsewhere, then putting them back into the machine to make it look like the machine was doing the testing. That's careful, ca…

That's the question: is there any calculated fraud here or was he just vastly overly optimistic?

... but even if there is no calculated fraud, I think some Tesla buyers are owed refunds or other compensation. If a company promises me X, I pay for it, and years later has not delivered X, eventually I need a refund.

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#103

Post by jcranmer »

ericmay wrote: post #47
itsoktocry wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A certain founder should be doing some hard time for ludicrous claims over the past 8 years. I don't think "hard time" is appropriate for white collar crimes. Money is how you speak to these people. Martha Stewart is still worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'm not sure Martha Stewart actually did "hard time" - she spent what, a few months in jail? Try 10-20 years. I'm also not arguing for against jail time for white collar crimes, just disputing that she specifically did hard time. Maybe the FTX guy or Enron guys are more appropriate for a comparison.

> I'm not sure Martha Stewart actually did "hard time" - she spent what, a few months in jail? Try 10-20 years.

From what I recall of studies, and also from what I've heard from criminal defense lawyers, sending someone to jail for even very short amount of times is likely to have a meaningful effect on their behavior. Even sending a white-collar defendant to jail for a few hours can win a lot of cooperation from them; and studies seem to indicate that there's no meaningful difference between a year in prison and 20 years in prison.

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#104

Post by kemotep »

ryandrake wrote: post #61

This site[1], which is a pretty comprehensive list of claims Musk has made and how long it’s been, made the rounds on HN a few times. It’s really incredible how much exaggeration comes out of the guy’s mouth. I don’t think it all counts as fraud, but at some point you gotta say Dude, Stop Talking. 1: https://elonmusk.today/

Last month he stood before the SpaceX staff in Boca Chica and outlined how he still believes that he will get 1 million people on Mars by the 2050s. U til they can start producing 100’s of Starships, this is not even remotely realistic. Sending thousands of people to Mars in the next 5 years is not a serious or realistic idea.

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#105

Post by jcranmer »

MisterDizzy wrote: post #18
_akhe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The platform is more open and vibrant than ever You reveal your lack of experience with Twitter, it's declined a lot. Pretty sure you can't even link to a tweet (a xweet?) from a news article or blog post - they totally killed the platform, not sure where you've been.

A lot of people are really defensive about this. What's the big deal if X does well? Why are people so personally invested in pretending like Elon didn't do the world a huge service by removing Twitter from the control of possibly the most politically extreme and anti-constitutional subculture in the entire country?

> the control of possibly the most politically extreme and anti-constitutional subculture in the entire country?

What are you trying to refer to here? Because the most politically extreme and anti-constitutional subculture I can think of right now is QAnon, which has not (nor is not) in control of Twitter.

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#106

Post by uberdru »

ok123456 wrote: post #94
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading "Stewart was found guilty on charges including conspiracy and obstruction of justice" [1]. She sold shares on inside information. She went to jail for lying to investigators about it. [1] https://people.com/martha-stewart-fraud-case-prison-sentence...

There was no insider trading. She thought she was in trouble and made up a story for the investigators that it was a limit order, which she was convicted of. While lying is bad, this was a case of overzealous prosecution because it was a high-profile case and an inappropriate use of resources. Instead of prison, they should have just had her do some cheezy PSAs and enter in to a deferred prosecution agreement. I find…

worth looking into cathy wood's role in this respect. . .

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#107

Post by paxys »

ryantgtg wrote: post #62
chollida1 wrote: post #6

This is about defrauding people who bought a tesla, not investors. > In 2020, Musk told a crowd in Shanghai that he remains “confident” that Tesla will achieve “basic functionality for level five autonomy this year,” referring to the SAE’s rankings of autonomy. Tesla’s technology, in 2024, is still at level 2. This reminds me alot of the Thernos case where she tried to make the case not about fraud but about an overl…

No, this should be about defrauding people who bought FSD for their Tesla. Most Tesla owners do not care about FSD, according to the estimates of subscription rates.

Plenty of people bought Teslas anticipating that they'd buy FSD when it fully worked "next year".

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#108

Post by ceejayoz »

MisterDizzy wrote: post #100

[flagged]

Spare me with this; one of Musk's very first major actions was removing an account he didn't like (and had previously committed to leaving alone! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456) because it was tweeting publicly available ADS-B data his plane was broadcasting... and then went on a tear banning journalists tweeting about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2022_Twitter_suspensi...

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#109

Post by jcranmer »

marcusverus wrote: post #91
chollida1 wrote: post #6

This is about defrauding people who bought a tesla, not investors. > In 2020, Musk told a crowd in Shanghai that he remains “confident” that Tesla will achieve “basic functionality for level five autonomy this year,” referring to the SAE’s rankings of autonomy. Tesla’s technology, in 2024, is still at level 2. This reminds me alot of the Thernos case where she tried to make the case not about fraud but about an overl…

There is an obvious difference between lying and being wrong. Theranos claimed to already have created their magic machine, which was a blatant lie. They intentionally misled investors by pretending to put samples into a fake testing machine, secretly removing the samples to test them in a lab elsewhere, then putting them back into the machine to make it look like the machine was doing the testing. That's careful, ca…

> Musk, by contrast, never claimed to have something that he did not have.

IIRC, wasn't the video that claimed to demonstrate a full trip conducted by FSD actually like 100 different splices? That right there would be a claim of something that didn't exist.

Re: Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim

#110

Post by uberdru »

marcusverus wrote: post #91
chollida1 wrote: post #6

This is about defrauding people who bought a tesla, not investors. > In 2020, Musk told a crowd in Shanghai that he remains “confident” that Tesla will achieve “basic functionality for level five autonomy this year,” referring to the SAE’s rankings of autonomy. Tesla’s technology, in 2024, is still at level 2. This reminds me alot of the Thernos case where she tried to make the case not about fraud but about an overl…

There is an obvious difference between lying and being wrong. Theranos claimed to already have created their magic machine, which was a blatant lie. They intentionally misled investors by pretending to put samples into a fake testing machine, secretly removing the samples to test them in a lab elsewhere, then putting them back into the machine to make it look like the machine was doing the testing. That's careful, ca…

It's about revenue recognition. TSLA has beaten estimates multiple times based on revenue recognized from FSD "Beta". There's your fraud.
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