Tesla is being investigated for securities and wire fraud for self-driving claim • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by itsoktocry » Thu, May 09, 2024, 11:26 AM UTC

philosopher1234 wrote: post #53

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.

Hard time seems much more severe than fines and penalties, and the damages caused are much more severe than petty theft (which gets you jail time.) it seems totally appropriate to jail these people to me.

>it seems totally appropriate to jail these people to me.

Yes, people would rather see their enemies punished versus solutions that can actually benefit people, that much is clear by these comments.

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

#162

Post by itsoktocry » Thu, May 09, 2024, 11:31 AM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #54

bilsbie wrote: post #28

The latest self driving is getting really good. My main problem is being a front seat driver and taking action because I’m not sure of it’s thought process but it ends up getting things correct. I think all these systems* could benefit from earlier braking to give the “supervisor” more piece of mind. * including my wife in this.

agree, half the people in this thread havnt used it. i think it's probably clear to most FSD testers that end-to-end NN trained on video will get you L5 eventually.

>will get you L5 eventually.

"Eventually" wasn't the sales pitch.

Is FSD an awesome technology? Yes. But I've watched enough YouTube videos of it, including by superfans, that I know if you set the navigation and climbed in the back seat, that car is not making it to its destination without getting in an accident.

That's why the safety vs no FSD comparisons are so silly: you have a person intervening. How would it look if you didn't? Guess we'll find out!

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

#163

Post by pjc50 » Thu, May 09, 2024, 12:03 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #86

ceejayoz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's been frequently far more specific than that on timelines. 2018: "By next year, a Tesla should be able to drive around a parking lot, find an empty spot, read signs to confirm it’s valid & park." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1057690425710891009 2016: "In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/stat…

"a Tesla", not "all Teslas". And of course "should" not "will". And so on. If his press releases are to be treated like contracts that he can be held to, then the verbiage needs to be parsed as if his words were contracts. That's just not going to go very well for the people litigating that he made false claims. Which gives the impression that the litigation isn't so much about punishing the wrongs he has committed,…

> If his press releases are to be treated like contracts that he can be held to

Are you familiar with Carbolic Smoke Ball?

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

#164

Post by danaris » Thu, May 09, 2024, 1:22 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #85

mikestew wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And after years of publicly looking like a lying car salesman, why would he still listen to those employees? I don’t think it’s the line employees that are lying here.

The way I understood it went down for the CEO: 1. Made optimistic claims about future product. 2. Some of the people tasked with implementation disagreed about optimistic claim. 3. Those people got fired for underperforming. 4. All people on the team tasked with implementation agree with optimistic claim. 5. Doubled down on the promise. Repeat every year. I can't see how a CEO could be blamed in this scenario, as cle…

Satire requires a clarity of purpose and target, lest it be mistaken for, and contribute to, that which it intends to criticize.

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

#165

Post by rtkwe » Thu, May 09, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #160

rtkwe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is the fines aren't a big deterrence as they're not that big. A lot of fines are less than the money the company made or saved with the illicit activity so it just becomes a line item cost more than an actual penalty.

> The issue is the fines aren't a big deterrence as they're not that big. So make them big? What would you and/or society gain if Musk goes to jail for 10 years? Another mouth to feed in prison, while he continues to accrue wealth in off-shore accounts.

Can we legally get fines large enough that it would actually hurt Musk or people of his economic stratum financially? The Supreme Court has put some pretty hard limits on civil damages awards over the years and they've just gotten more business friendly since those courts.

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

#166

Post by ornornor » Thu, May 09, 2024, 1:46 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #158

ornornor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s money when you have billions? Isn’t jail worse then? I’d be prepared to pay a very large amount if it meant I could avoid going to jail. There is a much much much smaller amount (if any) of jail I’d accept in return for money.

> What’s money when you have billions? You take the billions.

No but that what I mean, I have nowhere near billions and I’d be prepared to pay much more money to avoid going to jail than I’d be prepared to spend in jail (time wise) to keep all my money.

Therefore, I’d think losing money hurts less than spending time in jail no matter how much or how little money you have.

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

#167

Post by chollida1 » Thu, May 09, 2024, 2:16 PM UTC

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.

>No, this should be about defrauding people who bought FSD for their Tesla.

Yes, it sounds like you and I are in complete agreement:)

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

#168

Post by windexh8er » Thu, May 09, 2024, 2:42 PM UTC

nullorempty wrote: post #10

_akhe wrote: post #2

Securities fraud again, funny that the guy who "bought Twitter" and shut down free speech ended up getting sued himself due to his own tweet (lying about # of Teslas being produced). It's like a bully trying to chase someone but tripping over their shoelace in the first step, love it. On self-driving: For several years the guy has been saying "next month" "next year" it's been like 10+ years at this point. He's a big…

I think Musk is just relaying the promises he receives from ML/AI guys he employes. As far as I know FSD has always been a paid option.

FSD, in its current iteration, is not what Musk has promised since 2016. FSD is not autonomous or even remotely close to driverless operation as he's claimed it would be. FSD is ultimately a marketing gimmick.

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

#169

Post by windexh8er » Thu, May 09, 2024, 2:51 PM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #125

_akhe wrote: post #2

Securities fraud again, funny that the guy who "bought Twitter" and shut down free speech ended up getting sued himself due to his own tweet (lying about # of Teslas being produced). It's like a bully trying to chase someone but tripping over their shoelace in the first step, love it. On self-driving: For several years the guy has been saying "next month" "next year" it's been like 10+ years at this point. He's a big…

1) Linking to Tweets still exists, and doesn't require that you're logged in to view them. 2) According to their own released numbers (which you may or may not trust), the usage of the platform is at a record high. 3) They've unbanned many accounts that were previously banned and seem to display a wider tolerance for free speech on the platform. The innovative community notes feature is sometimes helpful to point out…

> It seems more free, not less free.

Regardless of whether or not that statement made is true - the problem is that of misinformation distribution. Social media isn't socially useful if it's being leveraged to influence ideas that are not factual.

Given that the owner of the platform has pushed misinformation and also sells products that don't align with what he's promised, at least to me, would lead me to question the statistics that are self-published and unable to be publicly validated.

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

#170

Post by windexh8er » Thu, May 09, 2024, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

By this reasoning it would be OK for a car company to market a car with an automatic transmission, yet the clutch was still required to be used on gear changes at delivery. You paid a large premium for the automatic clutch as was marketed by the CEO of the company to be delivered "next year". This claim you bought into was now made over 8 years ago and what the CEO stated has still not been delivered. Your car now has over 120k miles on it with a feature that is only half delivered.

You wouldn't consider this a fraudulent claim?