Comment by animex | Hacker News Reader

Comment by animex | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely. If Martha Stewart went to jail for much less, a certain CEO[1] should be doing some hard time for ludicrous claims over the past 8 years. Some back-of-the-napkin-math: If we focus on the 4m Model 3 (& Y) vehicles sold that had these claims attached and assume that there was a peak uptake rate of 46% declining to 11% as these claims became obviously untrue. On FSD @ an ever-increasing price of $6000-$12000 USD per vehicle. Let's say take the declining rate difference as indicative of the group that was misled. 35% of those taking FSD took the feature because of erroneous claims, generating about 2Bn in high-margin revenue collected pumping the stock and causing investors to pile on creating even more validation of this claim. Pumping the stock also created massive tranche payouts for Musk for hitting certain valuations that should only have been hit when the automaker was truly a runaway success. Musk is incentivized to use this reality-distortion field & cult-like persona to continue lying about Tesla's future for personal and corporate gain.

[1] Edit: Founder -> CEO

We all need to remember Musk wasn't the founder. He was an early investor that forced the founders out. We can argue about whether the founders would have been more/less successful but he didn't found Tesla.

[https://www.theverge.com/23815634/tesla-elon-musk-origin-fou...]

Elon "take-n-tank" Musk the brand destroyer lol

I have an even funnier one for you: That viral video of when he was bald and bought that very expensive McLaren... "It's the highlight of my life" he said shortly before totaling the car with no insurance.

"He's a genius!"

Wow, if he's a McLaren fan, i guess going for looks over practicality is not surprising! (I'm joking, but not really).

I'm always curious what caused you and other to hate Elon so much? I think when he bought Twitter and unbanned some conservatives?

Forget Twitter fuup because he made some bad decison and he is trying to build again
Forget pedo comments on diver because may be he tweeted in the heat of the moment
Forget blaming an engineer at spacex initial days for the launch failure and notacceptimg it later when the truth was known because may be he cares more about the company which is err...
Forget not taking seriously about Tesla safety and firing who brought attention because he genuinely thought it's really not a big deal.
But the following can never be forgiven. Considering the way he projects himself a savior of civilization.
He does not value other human life.

Hiring surrogate mother for his then girlfriends second* child. His probably 9th or 10th child.

How is this ethical. That too it's not like he doesnot have any children.

Lets take those one at a time. So Twitter he fired a bunch of people and it works better than ever with more innovation. He called a guy a pedo who may be one and was talking smack way before Elon was. Maybe he misattributed some failure to someone? Okay, who hasn't done that? You say he went easy on Tesla safety.. with the cars with the best safety ratings of any car that exists.. still not getting it. You are mad he wants to save civilization also, okay... and that is bad again why? Because he is actually doing it by popularizing electric cars that can run on sustainable energy, or by giving internet to those who don't have it and could never have had it before? And supposedly you say he doesn't value human life, according to who? Why do you care how many children another person has, He has the money to have 10000 children and treat them all better than most millionaire children. Your question of "How is that ethical?" How is it not? You gave literally no reasons that don't scream an emotional attachent to hating him.

I should have been clearer. Sorry about that. My point is you can ignore everything but not hiring the surrogate mother.

It's not justified as he has plenty of kids and it's unethical because the mother does not get to see the kid ever. Not saying it's illegal. If you don't see any problem in it, then I have nothing to say.

I was a huge hero worshipper of Elon until I learn d about the surrogacy. He is just like any other rich ass hole.

tf are you talking about. Nothing unethical about surrogacy, it’s all between consenting adults.

This could have been avoided just by calling it "Partial Self Driving" and then everything would be above board.

That’s only part of the problem. They’re specifically investigating claims Elon made himself where he said the car drove itself without human input. He’s repeatedly made claims like this.

That’s what they call it in the aerospace industry /s

"Self driving" means something. There are industry standards for that phraseology that pre-date Tesla's (mis)usage.

"Autopilot" may have been colloquially misleading (because of the public's unfamiliarity with aviation), but I don't think that name was problematic. Autopilot in planes can historically look like a basic cruise control.

However, some of the associated statements and demonstrations at that time were problematic. (e.g. "The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.")

Or "Fool's Self Driving" to preserve the pronunciation:-)

Haha I like the Fool's Gold analogy because his family owned an Emerald company in Zambia:

  "During that time," said Errol, speaking to Elon's college years, "I managed to send money I made from emerald sales to him and [Elon's brother, Kimbal Musk] for living expenses."

It's advanced cruise control, basically, and if advertised as such it'd be great.

That was auto-pilot. FSD literally does what it says, if the government didn't require you to be attentive you wouldn't have to be.

If you value your life you won't let a Tesla ever drive you without paying attention the entire time.

I agree 100% he should be prosecuted at this point. He should have been the first time.

I think Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading idk how similar that is. With OTA updates still could claim this could happen.

This imo is less than both Theranos and insider trading like the FSD has disclaimers right? Unless the argument is Tesla is only valuable because of FSD and not best in class EV experience

The pay package being declined by a Delaware court and now this couldnt have come at a worse time for Musk though. Billionaires got their problems too huh

> Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading

"Stewart was found guilty on charges including conspiracy and obstruction of justice" [1]. She sold shares on inside information. She went to jail for lying to investigators about it.

[1] https://people.com/martha-stewart-fraud-case-prison-sentence...

There was no insider trading. She thought she was in trouble and made up a story for the investigators that it was a limit order, which she was convicted of.

While lying is bad, this was a case of overzealous prosecution because it was a high-profile case and an inappropriate use of resources. Instead of prison, they should have just had her do some cheezy PSAs and enter in to a deferred prosecution agreement.

I find the members of congress consistently beating the market to be much more troubling.

> was no insider trading

"Martha Stewart, the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, also became embroiled in the scandal after it emerged that her broker, Peter Bacanovic, tipped her off that ImClone was about to drop. In response, Stewart sold about $230,000 in ImClone shares on December 27, 2001, a day before the announcement of the FDA decision" [1].

It’s far from fact that she did not trade on inside information.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case

"Insider trading" doesn't have a well defined boundary. The SEC sued Mark Cuban [1] for "committing securities fraud by engaging in illegal insider trading" under similar circumstances. But he kept his mouth shut, didn't destroy evidence, and didn't lie to the FBI. Did he trade on "inside information"? Sure. But the Jury found him not guilty of insider trading.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban#SEC_insider_trading...

> "Insider trading" doesn't have a well defined boundary

Correct. In our courts it’s ambiguously defined.

Colloquially, Stewart got a tip-off that arose from the non-public outcome of a drug trial. Whether she committed insider trading is open; whether she traded—knowingly or unknowingly—on material non-public information is pretty clear.

It was third-party hearsay. The stock tip came from her stock broker, who also happened to handle transactions for people with inside knowledge. The broker didn't know the details about the FDA trials, only the movement some of his clients were making.

This is why she wasn't tried on insider trading, but instead on the story she made up to cover the fact that she was given this knowledge indirectly.

> stock tip came from her stock broker, who also happened to handle transactions for people with inside knowledge. The broker didn't know the details about the FDA trials

Source? Not disputing the broker was facilitating others’ insider trades, but if they were, it takes the suspicion to a whole new level around why this broker is so comfortable with his clients with potential insider status making large bets just ahead of corporate events.

Agreed. I don't think she knowingly insider traded. After the fact, the authorities were going after her broker and she erased a voice mail message to protect the broker. They were upset that she deleted evidence and went after her because she was high profile.

> were upset that she deleted evidence and went after her because she was high profile

She also previously held securities licenses. That takes entire categories of innocent error out of the picture. I hold securities licenses. I’d be held to a higher standard because plausible deniability is removed.

worth looking into cathy wood's role in this respect. . .

When are these "risk takers" ever taking a risk if their behavior is always excused?

> Unless the argument is Tesla is only valuable because of FSD

Not specifically that, but Musk has stated that he sees Tesla as a software company.

> Unless the argument is Tesla is only valuable because of FSD

That's not how fraud works. Fraud doesn't require that the false claim us the only source of value of the product, it only requires that the false claim is material to the decision to purchase the product at the price offered.

It's going to be hard to prove fraud when literally everywhere you buy it it said it is not currently available and gave no timeline to when you would receive it.

>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.

I'm not sure Martha Stewart actually did "hard time" - she spent what, a few months in jail? Try 10-20 years.

I'm also not arguing for against jail time for white collar crimes, just disputing that she specifically did hard time. Maybe the FTX guy or Enron guys are more appropriate for a comparison.

> I'm not sure Martha Stewart actually did "hard time" - she spent what, a few months in jail? Try 10-20 years.

From what I recall of studies, and also from what I've heard from criminal defense lawyers, sending someone to jail for even very short amount of times is likely to have a meaningful effect on their behavior. Even sending a white-collar defendant to jail for a few hours can win a lot of cooperation from them; and studies seem to indicate that there's no meaningful difference between a year in prison and 20 years in prison.

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.

Force those responsible to eat the cost of providing partial refunds to people who bought full self drive based on false claims.

Strongly disagree with both claims. Fraud of a sufficient degree causes harm at a scale that is equivalent (in economic terms at least) to the consequences of murder. And jail time absolutely speaks to wealthy people, given the amount of money and effort wealthy people will spend defending themselves to avoid it.

>Fraud of a sufficient degree causes harm at a scale that is equivalent (in economic terms at least) to the consequences of murder.

This is ridiculous, practically and morally.

Someone losing their life is far worse than a billion people being defrauded of $10 each, regardless of how the economists decide to value a human.

Disagree. First, it wouldn’t be $10 split evenly amongst a billion people, some people would end up losing significantly more than others. Second, we can’t speak to the real world consequences of massive fraud in this particular case yet, but in the case of the Bernie Madoff fraud, multiple people are known to have killed themselves as a result of their loss, so we can only assume similar outcomes here.

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.

The size of white collar crimes, measured in financial damage, and the large number of victims of many white collar crimes, not to mention the damage to the economy, institutional reputation, etc. makes a car theft ring that would get 10 years look like piffle.

Hard time costs humans the same amount whether they're rich or poor - insofar as the justice system is equally accessible and you can't just lawyer your way out if wealthy or get screwed by a disinterested public defender if poor, of course.

Money is amoral. It quickly becomes a calculation of ROI to violate the law. We've been reluctant for some reason to index fines against the wealth of the offender, but what would be a ruinous fine for a poor person is irrelevant to a wealthy person (eg. $1000 gag order violations). Also, the wheels of justice turn inexorably but slowly, and if first-to-market matters a lot with new there may be no fine that could restore things to the way it should have been if everyone acted within the law.

>Money is amoral. It quickly becomes a calculation of ROI to violate the law.

You're describing the current system.

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.

If someone steals something, taking the thing they stole back is of course the first step.

Other than that, the next step depends on what you think the point of the court/prison system is. If the point of the system is to prevent criminals from harming people: white collar criminals do crime at scale. They can hurt many more people than blue collar criminals.

If the point is to reform people, it seems like white collar criminals have an easier time lying to themselves and justifying their actions, because they don’t physically take things from people, it’s all very abstract. So that seems like a harder project that might take longer.

If the point is to prevent others from following their example, there are lots of reasons to punish white collar criminals more harshly. Their crimes are more difficult to work out, so getting caught might be harder. Plus there’s less of a de-facto preventative aspect—with blue collar crimes, depending on the crime, there’s likely a chance the victim might be physically present and quite irate, so they might fight, potentially even kill, the culprit.

Of course there are some reasons that blue collar crimes can be more serious (muggers might physically hurt somebody). But I don’t think hard time is inappropriate in either case.

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