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Comment by VagueMag | Hacker News Reader

> The Justice Department’s Autopilot probe is far from recommending any action partly because it is competing with two other DOJ investigations involving Tesla one of the sources said. Investigators still have much work to do and no decision on charges is imminent this source said.

This is definitely a thing that happens. If you are ever doing crimes, just be sure to commit a whole bunch of them so the DOJ has to move more slowly. It's a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kind of thing.

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> It's a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kind of thing.

It’s actually a 5th Amendment (double-jeopardy) thing; prosecuting a subset of crimes from a single course of conduct may preclude prosecuting others depending on their relationship, so it becomes important to fully investigate before prosecution.

In this case I suspect it’s also a ‘Elon musk has too many lawyers and is acquiring a company that “buys ink by the barrel”’ problem too.

Everyone involved is going to be very careful to not end up personally targeted or liable, and that nothing done could be twisted to make themselves or the administration look like idiots.

It’s a big part of why ‘the rich don’t have consequences’, as is the current fashion to say - they can defend themselves against all but the most careful prosecutions, and can afford to hire people to make sure their asses are covered (if they think to do so).

As to if Elon actually did cover his ass here is yet to be determined. I think he probably didn’t sufficiently, but can muddy the waters enough to not go to prison, and would just have to shell out some money in a decade or so to fines or civil suits.

Only time will tell!

They're investigating a company not an individual. The article really gives no information about which individuals might be liable.

Of course! We all know who 'runs' those companies, who is the prominent face of those companies, who has repeatedly made very public (and often dubiously factual) pronouncements about the exact technologies and products at the center of the investigation, who has all their net worth tied up in these companies, who has been an outspoken critic of various government agencies (and relatively politically active), and also happens to be very publicly buying a hot button social media platform right now.

Completely unrelated to Mr. Musk, I'm sure.

I propose to call this kind of attack LAPA ("Legal Analysis Paralysis Attack")

Watching Trump do the same, I've taken to calling it the Montgomery Burns Defense (canonically known as Three Stooges Syndrome in the Simpsons episode, apparently)

I think it's "No One Wants To Be the Pin That Pricks the Overinflated Tesla Stock Bubble" paralysis.

And do it openly and in public.

>And do it openly and in public.

And make sure the figures involved are not below 9 digits. That way, when you get your two year (6 months with good behavior) white collar slap on the wrist, your French Chateau will still be waiting, and you can laugh at the guy who's doing a decade for bouncing a $200 check on the way out.

Musk is an outspoken critic of the current administration. Given what we've seen from the Justice Department over the last few years, does it not seem highly likely that this is politically-motivated?

Musk has actually been treated with an incredibly light touch given the number of people who have been maimed and killed by Teslas running Autopilot. If this Administration was truly antagonistic to Musk, there are dozens of things they could be doing to create problems for him and his companies. They're not.

Or the current administration is trying to have regulators and prosecutors start to go after malfeasance and Musk is criticizing the administration because he’s got a lot that he can be prosecuted for.

Isn’t it fun how wild, unsubstantiated, paranoid speculation can cut both ways?

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