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Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

bloomberg.com

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Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#21

Post by elliekelly »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #14
drugme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what the story here is supposed to be. Did you catch the parts about Tesla harassing Tripp in a whole bunch of outlandish and basically thuggish ways in response -- ranging from a bogus $167m lawsuit up to apparently lying to the local police about him planning a mass shooting? That's what the story was about.

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?

The police report from the "mass shooting" event included two officers accounts of comments from Tesla employees that seem to indicate Tesla had some way of intercepting Tripp's communications. I'll try to find the document on scribd again.

Edit: The police report[1] starting on page 4. I think it's also noteworthy that the person whose comments seemed to indicate Tesla was tracking Tripp's phone was Gourthro who has just filed a whistleblower tip (supposedly) corroborating Tripp's allegations.

[1] https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/tesla-related-polic...

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#22

Post by drugme »

rebelwebmaster wrote: post #19

Not saying the article is or isn't true, but how credible is Bloomberg as a news outlet these days after the SuperMicro story?

Quite credible actually.

Edit (now that the above post has been edited): I agree that the lack of an unequivocal follow-up to the SuperMicro story -- that is saying neither "we admit we screwed up" or "we stand by the main points of our original story" or even "we need more time to look into this pls" -- is quite troubling.

Still, you have to look at their broader track record, compare them to other outlets in their weight class (nearly all of which, like the NYT in particular, have indulged in many more, and far greater follies). That and the fact that what they're reporting in this particular case is consistent with what we know to expect from Tesla/Musk after various other incidents.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#23

Post by [deleted] »

drugme wrote: post #22
rebelwebmaster wrote: post #19

Not saying the article is or isn't true, but how credible is Bloomberg as a news outlet these days after the SuperMicro story?

Quite credible actually. Edit (now that the above post has been edited): I agree that the lack of an unequivocal follow-up to the SuperMicro story -- that is saying neither "we admit we screwed up" or "we stand by the main points of our original story" or even "we need more time to look into this pls" -- is quite troubling. Still, you have to look at their broader track record, compare them to other outlets in their…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#24

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #18
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?

> Why should we believe him over Tesla at this point? "Funding secured." Also, your assertion that there is no corroboration is wrong, the new whistleblower Sean Gouthro is corroborating Tripp's claims. This behavior is also well in line with Elon Musk's established pattern of paranoid behavior in surveiling employees.

Again, that's certainly the narrative the article presents. But Gouthro did not (as far as is included in the article) corroborate that the accusations in the lawsuit are false or that the shooting threat was fake. He does corroborate the story that Tesla sent PIs to tail Tripp - because Gouthro himself sent those PIs, in response to the shooting threat that Gouthro himself saw.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#25

Post by jondubois »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #14
drugme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what the story here is supposed to be. Did you catch the parts about Tesla harassing Tripp in a whole bunch of outlandish and basically thuggish ways in response -- ranging from a bogus $167m lawsuit up to apparently lying to the local police about him planning a mass shooting? That's what the story was about.

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?

Rich people are evil, Musk is rich, therefore Musk is evil. That's all the evidence we need. Lock him up ;p

On a serious note though, it does annoy me that rich people these days always seem to have an excuse for everything and they have access to the best lawyers to come up with the all the right bullshit and PR needed to protect themselves.

I bet there are a lot of wealthy criminals getting away with things simply because of the way the legal system works.

If Musk did this, then he should get some jail time because it's not acceptable. Given the power imbalance, the viciousness of this act is on par with assault.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#26

Post by close04 »

antiviral wrote: post #5

This should be getting alot more attention. Even if Musk gets away with these things right now, this article raises awareness of what’s truly going on, raising the likelihood that future victims will be much more believable, similar to the way the dam eventually burst with Uber.

He gets away because people's attention span is short and they trust good PR and things that reinforce their opinions. So they will take the undeniably good stuff (SpaceX + Tesla successes), then assume everything else that's tacked onto them is also real, any other claim Musk makes on Twitter are real, and the bad press is just enemies and haters.

Also his position and money make him more or less legally untouchable even if his image would be permanently tarnished. This goes for anyone in his position whether they have his good PR or not. Money is indeed a superpower. Just ask Batman.

Edit. Funny how all my comments received the same number of downvotes at almost the same time.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#28

Post by praneshp »

rebelwebmaster wrote: post #19

Not saying the article is or isn't true, but how credible is Bloomberg as a news outlet these days after the SuperMicro story?

I have personally downgraded them to about TechCrunch level, but I haven't noticed a lot of questioning on HN.

Re: Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower

#30

Post by hxegon »

navigatesol wrote: post #15
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.

> 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.

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