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Comment by edgyquant | Hacker News Reader

Literally there’s not even a hint that Musk is above the law yet you’re calling it a cyberpunk future

>According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Stewart avoided a loss of $45,673 by selling all 3,928 shares of her ImClone Systems stock on December 27, 2001, after receiving material, nonpublic information from Peter Bacanovic, her broker at Merrill Lynch. The day following her sale, the stock value fell 16%.[49]

Martha Stewart went to jail for 5 months for a meager case of insider trading. Musk manipulated Tesla stock in front of, literally, the whole world and got a slap in the wrist (i.e. a fine that comes to about 0.1% of its net worth). A citizen would to go jail forever for a similar thing.

> Martha Stewart went to jail for 5 months for a meager case of insider trading.

I believe she went to prison for lying to investigators. The insider trading they couldn’t make stick. So in the end, maybe the cases aren’t so different?

Facts. She also just paid a fine for the insider trading. Her criminal case was due to conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators.

“Lying to a federal official” is one of the most BS things in the entire US penal. It’s practically carte blanche to imprison anyone you come across.

So just don't lie to the feds?

It would be more reasonable if federal officials faced similar penalties for lying to the public.

Smoking weed makes you lose your security clearance, Musk did it on camera and still has his because of "reasons". That is one example of the rules that apply to most others not applying to him.

Probably also an example of a rule that should be retired. Either that or they should remove clearance if you enjoy whisky.

you're missing the point of the rule. the issue with smoking weed isn't really about having impaired judgement, it's that weed is still illegal at the federal level. there are all kinds of low-level crimes that can put your clearance at risk. which kinda makes sense... they want the kind of person who strictly follows the rules for cleared positions.

I agree it's a dumb rule, but that seems orthogonal to whether Musk should have to follow an established rule. Repealing the rule would be best, but while it's in place equal enforcement is much better than enforcment for everyone except petty billionaires.

Equal enforcement just is never the way the world works, exceptions are made when its important enough.

> still has his [security clearance] because of "reasons".

Does he? I don't remember any resolution to that, but I thought they "temporarily" suspended it pending an investigation and then never completed the investigation.

> ...I thought they "temporarily" suspended it pending an investigation and then never completed the investigation.

that's the theme of this entire thread : rich person has a slap on the wrist announced publicly but then the punishment is never successfully fulfilled.

MS antitrust style.

I'm saying the opposite. I thought they suspended his clearance pending an investigation and then the investigation never ended. Just like if you're in jail pending your trial and the trial date keeps getting pushed back. Sure, you haven't been found guilty, but you're stuck in jail so does that matter?

I might be wrong that they suspended his clearance or that the investigation wasn't done, but that would be a different point tag. What you're making.

It ain't just Elan. There's a lot of non-enforcement of federal law, rules, & reg's involving marijuana.

And doing it publicly...that pretty well nerfs the old "give us the secrets, or we'll reveal the fact that you smoked week" spy gambit.

There was that whole thing where a court said a lawyer has to check all of his tweets, Musk shrugged it off, and the court did nothing about it.

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