> in April 2019, Chief Executive Elon Musk said that by mid-2020 Tesla (TSLA.O) would have over a million self-driving vehicles where riders "could go to sleep" during a trip.
This was a lie. It wasn't a mistake, or a "complicated and contradictory view". It was something that was clearly false, said by someone in the best possible position to know that it was false.
Journalism that tries to soften that is just indirect soft-touch PR. Despite the article mentioning multiple times that Tesla has "walked back" similar claims - something that happens so frequently that it can't really be omitted - the overall tone of the article is still far too accepting of Tesla's overall narrative.
FWIW I agree with your point here. But to play devils advocate, is it possible to prove that he knew it was false? It seems unlikely to me, and that is the crux of the issue - how can we hold people accountable (for misleading consumers, investors, etc) unless we have definitive proof that they knew the claims to be false?
Not trying to defend Musk here, just pointing out the philosophical and legal challenges of preventing stuff like this in the future. I don't really have any good answers - maybe we should allow law enforcement to search emails and other communications to look for evidence of explicit and intentional deceit in high profile cases like this.
www.tesla.com/autopilot has a very very obvious lie for the last few years that everyone involved has known was false from the beginning. The video starts out saying that there is only someone in the drivers seat legal purposes
Peritract 2021-08-19 12:29:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]
This was a lie. It wasn't a mistake, or a "complicated and contradictory view". It was something that was clearly false, said by someone in the best possible position to know that it was false.
Journalism that tries to soften that is just indirect soft-touch PR. Despite the article mentioning multiple times that Tesla has "walked back" similar claims - something that happens so frequently that it can't really be omitted - the overall tone of the article is still far too accepting of Tesla's overall narrative.
criticaltinker 2021-08-19 16:50:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]
Not trying to defend Musk here, just pointing out the philosophical and legal challenges of preventing stuff like this in the future. I don't really have any good answers - maybe we should allow law enforcement to search emails and other communications to look for evidence of explicit and intentional deceit in high profile cases like this.
sidibe 2021-08-19 16:58:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]