Farewell for Now | Hacker News Reader

Farewell for Now

seekingalpha.com

83 pointsrustcharm27 comments

Its really a shame this has been flagged off of the front page, seems kind of important that Musk is personally calling bloggers employers to threaten them with litigation.

Allegedly. I personally find the story somewhat unconvincing, but there may be some precedence here that gives the account more credence.

Musk does seem to be exhibiting increasingly insecure, threatening, and chaotic behavior (e.g. Thailand).

Admittedly I know nothing about the conduct or credibility of the blogger, but to me, “a guy on the Internet” is more credible than EM at the moment.

How can we substantiate this claim that Elon indeed called? I am very skeptical. There seems to be more and more fake news and flat out lying propagated on what used to be well respected forums.

Excited for the Tesla episode of Dirty Money on Netflix when this story comes to an end.

Wow. So only positive hype about a company can be published.

What's next? Suing shareholders who sell stocks instead of buying them?

Earlier, I use to admire Elon and companies like Google, FB, etc. But as I learn more and as their behaviors are being exposed, I feel they are modern villains of society. Elon particularly has been very disappointing. Anyone willing to buy a pre-owned Tesla?

> Anyone willing to buy a pre-owned Tesla?

Perhaps! Stats? Asking price?

Is there any competing reporting about what Musk said to the employer (not summarized by a financial adversary of Musk)?

I read this as hearsay by a bitter rival who can get in one last parting shot to help his short position.

Looks interesting, wish i could read it on mobile without registering.

It's a good site to register if you follow equities and if you invest.

In summary:

* Author wrote a number of articles analyzing Tesla from a financial perspective. Some of them critical of Tesla.

* Elon Musk contacted author's employer, threatening to sue if author continued to write.

* Author announces in response to this threat he will no longer write. Not just "no longer write about Tesla", no longer write, period.

* Author indicates this is in some ways a relief, as he has had poor experiences fielding "responses" and "critiques" from Musk and Musk's online supporters.

Noted elsewhere: [0]

* Author is director at company heavily invested in oil industry

* Author has published false stories regarding Tesla.

* Author has incited social media attacks on Tesla advocates, bulls, and fans.

Basically, the author was using pseudonymity and relative anonymity to manipulate the market in which he and his employer are heavily invested.

I am not a lawyer. Given his company's position and his own personal position, what he was doing is at least unethical and may even be illegal, exposing him and possibly his employer to liability once his employer became aware of his editorial moonlighting.

[0] https://electrek.co/2018/07/24/tesla-troll-short-doxxed-oil-...

EDIT: formatting

electrek is a tesla propaganda site. they literally posted montana skeptic’s identity in their article. since when is that acceptable behavior?

Montana skeptic wasn’t a troll, he wrote extremely insightful articles. I’m actually shocked how many people are trashing the dude

Whether you like what he says or not, he's got freedom of speech and shouldn't be bullied into silence.

I think the standard response here is "the cure for bad speech is more speech", yes?

Freedom of speech is constrained regarding financial market manipulation. I don't know of any laws this specific individual might be breaking by criticizing a third-party they are market-bet against, but in the general category of such law: there's all kinds of things I could say about my employer that would be considered insider trading and put me at risk of fines or jail time, my frozen peaches be damned. ;)

Freedom of speech is constrained regarding financial market manipulation

Sure. But the Musk fanboys seem to be under the impression that if you're shorting Tesla it should be illegal to say why, or even to write about Tesla. Or if for some reason the SEC won't go after people for that, they think it's OK for Musk to use the threat of well-funded litigation to shut up the critics, and will endlessly spin justifications for that based on what they perceive the critics' sins to be.

AFAICT the author discloses his short position and the short position of whomever he represents. Which is... what responsible people do when writing about companies. Bullying him into silence because Musk and his sycophants don't like his writing is a horrible thing (especially given how much overlap there is between Musk fans and people who think of/describe themselves as free-speech advocates).

More speech? It sounds like Elon has a very specific idea of what sort of speech that is: pick up the phone and threaten the speaker's employer.

Muddy waters did a similar thing (posting research anonymously), Matt Levine wrote about it : https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-09/can-noisy...

I'm able to read the full article on mobile without being pestered to register (using Chrome on Android). I didn't even need to request the "Desktop site" either.

Holy moly.

This is good news. I despise having my SA feed filled to the brim with TSLA because of folks with an agenda like this guy. A sample of his latest headlines:

    - Why are all these Tesla cars baking in the sun? 
    - I believe Musk is bluffing about Q3 profits
    - Munro's teardown spells big trouble
    - 'Hey, maybe the government will bail out Tesla'
    - I don't believe tesla's delivery report

A lot of drivel (and maybe libel?), multiple days a week. It's so vitriolic I avoid reading SA just because of it. And there are others.

It’s good news that because you don’t like what this guy has to say, Musk threatened him through his employer to shut him up? Jesus.

If he doesn’t believe Tesla’s official financial reports, I think it’s fair for me to not believe this episode - there is no evidence of this profile being a person.

I’m just glad to have less noise regardless, don’t have enough invested in TSLA to really care.

there is no evidence of this profile being a person.

Sure there is, it’s in TFA and it was doxxed elsewhere. You’re welcome to believe otherwise of course, especially if that makes you feel better, but understand the difference between “no evidence of,” and “choosing not to believe.”

Sorry, what’s TFA?

This looks like clickbait crap you’d expect on a badly curated site. It’s a site about stock price speculation. I could imagine them as headlines on The Motley Fool for example.

What if EM threatened to ruin you for reading them?

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