Hacker News Reader

Check mate. He cannot have lied about Tesla if anything he says about Tesla is categorically excluded from being a lie for the purposes of this conversation.

We are excluding optimistic promises that weren't true, because it's completely different than outright lying about what you are working on

> We are excluding optimistic promises that weren't true

You're excluding that. Most people do not, because he has a history of making wildly optimistic (to the point of completely unrealistic) "predictions" in order to froth up media attention and juice his company's value. Most people consider this a lie. You don't.

arandomusername took the time to acknowledge a whole category of Musk’s statements that would be considered lies if we didn’t make a special excuse for them. The challenge here is “prove to me that he’s a liar within the framework of my own mind where I’ve declared him an honest man”

Would you consider it lying if he made optimistic promises while knowing they were impossible?

yes

So you think that Elon seriously believed that Autopilot was coming the same year for 9 years or so in a row? If that wasn’t a total lie, he’s really stupid. He obviously knows that he’s wrong but still makes completely unrealistic predictions for hype/marketing reasons. That’s lying.

Exactly. We are excluding his public statements about Tesla because

> Actual tweet: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”

> Which a) reads like a joke and b) didn't say he is taking, but considering. The only potential lie is wrt funding, which he still claims he had secured.

It wasn't a potential lie. He _had not_ secured funding.

> Only lie, but it's more of petty insulting than outright lying, at least when it comes to with relation in business matters.

It's a "petty insult" to say "I have evidence that you are a pedophile, arandomusername" to all the media that will print it? No, he had no evidence. In fact he scrambled after this to hire a private investigator to try to find some.

But that didn't stop him, Musk himself literally emailed BuzzFeed to say "I have proof that he has a 12 year old child bride and is leading a trafficking ring."

"Petty insult" is insulting to the person on the receiving end of all this, and insulting to everyone else's intelligence.

> Constantly Kicking the Can Down the Road on Fully Self-Driving Teslas

> Again, optimistic.

Musk is literally signing documents being sent to DMVs saying that FSD "this year" is "not an engineering reality". That's not optimism. That's speaking out of both sides of your mouth. He knows its not happening this year, and he's signing official documents saying so, while pumping away on Twitter that it IS happening this year.

I think you give way too much credit to the "optimistic goals are not lying".

Elon has repeatedly done not just the "FSD is coming, this year, for reals", but "We are bumping this event in 3 months time because we'll have a huge announcement and release" that doesn't happen.

At some point you lose any credibility that you're "just being optimistic" and that you have zero evidence to say "X will be possible when I said so", and actual outright evidence from your engineers saying "X is not possible and will not be possible by then".

> "Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes."

That was a lie. Musk reinstated thousands of banned accounts two weeks after that tweet, with no content moderation council in sight (which to this day has not been set up).

> "Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency."

33 days later: "Tesla sells $272M in Bitcoin from orders."

You're contorting yourself to defend this man.

> It wasn't a potential lie. He _had not_ secured funding.

I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that (but then again, hard to prove a negative), and he still claims he did. Either way, like I said, I'm willing to concede on this point and agree that this is a lie, the only outright lie in my opinion that I have seen.

> It's a "petty insult" to say "I have evidence that you are a pedophile, arandomusername" to all the media that will print it? No, he had no evidence. In fact he scrambled after this to hire a private investigator to try to find some.

It's petty insult because the other dude first said his submarine thing is useless or whatever (while the lead diver actually asked him to continue working on it). So he fired back, hence petty insult.

> Musk is literally signing documents being sent to DMVs saying that FSD "this year" is "not an engineering reality".

Show me a document that Musk signed, that says FSD not reality this year & a quote from Elon in similar timeframe suggesting FSD that year.

> At some point you lose any credibility

Yes he lost credibility when it comes to promising things. If he said Tesla $25k next year, you would be fully in the right not to believe that. But it is not the same as saying Tesla is working on a $25k car when not working on it.

> That was a lie. Musk reinstated thousands of banned accounts two weeks after that tweet, with no content moderation council in sight (which to this day has not been set up).

Sure, but if we give him benefit of the doubt could have just been change of plans. I don't believe he tweeted that while knowing he will not set it up.

> 33 days later: "Tesla sells $272M in Bitcoin from orders."

Where's the "from orders" part? Tesla bought $1.5B worth of Bitcoin before that, perhaps they are selling some from that "investment"?

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/02/08/tesla-invests-1...

>> It wasn't a potential lie. He _had not_ secured funding.

> I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that (but then again, hard to prove a negative)

The SEC has:

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226

> Sure, but if we give him benefit of the doubt could have just been change of plans.

He's lost the benefit of the doubt by so frequently being dishonest, but in any case: saying you're going to do something, then choosing not to do it, makes you a liar.

> Musk and Tesla have agreed to settle the charges against them without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations

> He's lost the benefit of the doubt by so frequently being dishonest

But so far it's down to two, tesla private and twitter committee. Hardly frequently being dishonest.

How many frauds does it take to make that conclusion? Just one will suffice for most of us.

"Down to two" according to who?

Digging into this one, first:

> It's petty insult because the other dude first said his submarine thing is useless or whatever

Being blunt, uh, "so fucking what"? So someone says your idea is not useful, and your response is to blaze to the media that you have _evidence_ of _actual criminal behavior_ of a heinous nature?

That's not petty insults in anybody's world, no matter what they say about your submarine.

Your rephrasing of what's been said to lessen the impact is not appreciated.

He didn't tell him his idea is not useful, he told him “stick his submarine where it hurts”. Elon fired back. Hence petty insult.

You still stubbornly fail to see how going to the media with the claim that you have actual evidence of felony criminal behavior is not just a "petty insult", no matter what someone said to you to begin with.

And let's be really real for a moment, Elon was as concerned about making himself a hero and savior and inserting himself in a situation that was time and resource critical, in a way that could actually have diverted progress AWAY from the rescue as anything else, and he did so by firing off the first idea that came into his head with zero inkling of its viability (because any more than 30 seconds critical thinking with a look at the cave map would show that there was ZERO chance this thing would get even a fraction of a distance towards anyone in the cave system), but figured "the world needs to hear from me now".

In your eyes, someone saying something vaguely insulting to you means you should feel free to go to the media or their employer and say "XYZ is a criminal who does abhorrent things, and I have proof", and that's a fair response to an insulting comment to you. That's one fairly small step away from SWATing someone.

I don't feel its tenable to continue a debate given that wide a definitional gap.

If someone hurts your feelings, libel and slander are neither "firing back" nor justified.

Yeah, 'the diver displeased me' doesn't make retaliatory lies not lies.

He’s a talented and intelligent engineer. It’s hard to see a world where he gets the “self-driving by end of year” thing wrong, like, four years in a row, but is still operating in good faith when he sends out the tweet for the fifth year.

If instead of using the word “lies” to refer to his statements, we instead used the words “unreliable and deliberately misleading”, would you be more on board?

> world where he gets the “self-driving by end of year” thing wrong, like, four years in a row

Four?

This will be the NINTH year in a row we've been promised "FSD this year, for reals", even as his Directors tell the DMV that "FSD this year is not an engineering reality".