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

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 189 posts

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

#131

Post by MBCook »

api wrote: post #102
marcusverus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree.

After 7 years or whatever you can’t keep being “overly optimistic”. At some point it becomes clear it’s just not ready and you need to give people their money back and stop selling it until it is.

If all FSD things were sold with a “really will be in 2 years or 80% of your money back” clause that would be different in my mind.

But taking money and just never delivering is flat out fraud. No matter how many times you say “just one more year”.

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

#132

Post by lolc »

_akhe wrote: post #117
lolc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The CEO is still responsible for their own employees, CEO hired them or directed them to be hired, the CEO (especially this CEO) runs the company. Lying about features or the number of cars being produced etc. can't be limited to mere optimism because they mentioned specific numbers in a public way that were not true. > fired for underperforming The irony, since Musk destroys every brand and product he's ever touched…

Why should a CEO be responsible for their employees if they could instead take a huge pay package which they are obviously entitled to given they have to work around their lying employees?

That too was sarcasm :-)

You shouldn't be too hard on Musk regarding the "destroys" though: Many people are so incompetent you don't even get to hear about their failures! And others loot professionally without you ever getting to know about it. You have to ignore a lot to state "it has to be intentional".

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

#133

Post by ceejayoz »

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…

> The innovative community notes feature...

... was built and released pre-Musk, when it was called "Birdwatch".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Notes

As for government requests, for every Brazil there's an India. https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...

"Twitter accounts from over 100 prominent politicians, activists, and journalists in India and abroad have been blocked in India at the request of the government. On Monday, the account of the BBC News Punjabi was also blocked — the second time in a few months that the Indian government has used Twitter to throttle BBC services in its country."

"At the time that Musk took charge of the company, it had a mere 20 percent compliance rate with Indian government requests. Following massive layoffs that reduced 90 percent of Twitter India’s staff, the platform appears to have become far more obliging in the face of government pressure, as its actions to censor its critics now show."

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

#134

Post by wtfwhateven »

MisterDizzy wrote: post #119
ceejayoz wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It was fine when we did it, and cooperated with intel agencies to do it, but HE shouldn't be able to!!" He has every right to do it. He promised not to, and you're still claiming he isn't . That hypocrisy is very apparent.

[flagged]

You know as well as I do that you're using hypothetical incidents to justify hypocrisy and censorship. Please read the HN guidelines before posting too as repeatedly attacking someone's point as "playing stupid" has no place here.

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

#135

Post by ceejayoz »

neglesaks wrote: post #123
_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.

What you claim is clearly incorrect. First, major news outlets all over the world are still linking to twitter posts daily, not least because most of the worlds journalists are still actively using twitter, so obviously this feature still works. Also, there has never been more product development on Twitter/X than since the Musk takeover. Examples include community notes, creator revenue sharing and the features tied…

> Examples include community notes...

No, they don't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Notes

"In November 2022, at the request of new owner Elon Musk, Birdwatch was rebranded to Community Notes..."

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

#136

Post by [deleted] »

lolc wrote: post #132
_akhe wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO is still responsible for their own employees, CEO hired them or directed them to be hired, the CEO (especially this CEO) runs the company. Lying about features or the number of cars being produced etc. can't be limited to mere optimism because they mentioned specific numbers in a public way that were not true. > fired for underperforming The irony, since Musk destroys every brand and product he's ever touched…

Why should a CEO be responsible for their employees if they could instead take a huge pay package which they are obviously entitled to given they have to work around their lying employees? That too was sarcasm :-) You shouldn't be too hard on Musk regarding the "destroys" though: Many people are so incompetent you don't even get to hear about their failures! And others loot professionally without you ever getting to…

[deleted]

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

#137

Post by rchaud »

kube-system wrote: post #89
bagels wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't imagine paying $12,000 for technology that didn't exist, from someone who repeatedly lied about that technology existing.

People generally trust the US consumer products market. And that's a good thing. If people had to research the CEO of Old Navy before they bought a pair of pants from oldnavy.com, it would be pretty bad for our economy. And there are markets like this where trust is low, and they don't function well.

The difference is that Old Navy isn't selling anything they don't already have ready to go.

Lamborghini and Ferrari take orders, but they tell you what the average wait time is, and you don't have to pay a 100% deposit beforehand.

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

#138

Post by malfist »

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…

> Theranos claimed to already have created their magic machine, which was a blatant lie.

And to this day, you can go on Tesla's website, configure a car, and be offered the option to purchase "Full Self Driving Capability" which does not offer a fully self driving vehicle.

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

#139

Post by bagels »

kube-system wrote: post #89
bagels wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't imagine paying $12,000 for technology that didn't exist, from someone who repeatedly lied about that technology existing.

People generally trust the US consumer products market. And that's a good thing. If people had to research the CEO of Old Navy before they bought a pair of pants from oldnavy.com, it would be pretty bad for our economy. And there are markets like this where trust is low, and they don't function well.

If old navy CEO asked me to pay $5000 up front for jeans that can't wear out and that wash themselves, and had been saying that it'll be here next year for five years, I'd be pretty skeptical too. I also would encourage refunds or investigation when I buy it and the features are never delivered.

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

#140

Post by malfist »

klodolph wrote: post #40

“Everything everywhere is securities fraud” —Matt Levine https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt... The basic idea here is that you lied, the share price went up because of your lies, and that makes it security fraud. From one viewpoint it’s a useful tool to punish fraudsters and con men, and from another view it’s an overreach by the FTC. Maybe a more reasonable view is somewhere in the middle—i…

How is it possibly overreach? If you lie to investors to get them to give you more money, that is absolutely fraud.
Post reply on HN