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We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations. As you know, there are a long list o

We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations. As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways? Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive. And amazing how close his speech is moving (in form) to Trump's: it is all about "rumors", "alleged", "witch hunt", "unfair"...

gwern 8y ago
I guess we'll see how serious they are about these accusations if they sue the employee or file criminal charges; if the industrial espionage & sabotage accusations are true, it should be easy to make them stick - and having told the whole company about them, Musk now needs to take action or else forfeit credibility & deterrence (both for not being a liar, and for punishing theft/sabotage).
- neotek 8y ago
  The fact Musk still has any credibility at all given his penchant for making wild claims that inevitably fall flat is baffling to me. How many more spurious predictions and imaginary milestones does he need to pump out before people recognise him for the huckster monorail salesman that he is?
  - manicdee 8y ago
    For a huckster he’s doing a damn good job of fake shipping fake cars to fake customers who fake drive them in fake public. Excellent scam, would invest again.
    - jethro_tell 8y ago
      There's a huge difference between shipping a product and doing it profitably.
      - icantdrive55 8y ago
        Like the rest, he will eventually move manufacturing overseas, and all will be happy. If I had the money, I would be happy just to be on the waiting list. It's got to be a good feeling you're waiting/driving to a American made vechicle? A vechicle that payed the help(blue collar workers) a living wage? Or, close to a living wage? I'm a Musk fanboy I guess?
      - berbec 8y ago
        You should tell Bezos that.
        gamblor956 8y ago
        Bezos can and does ship products profitably across multiple, disparate markets. He simply reinvests the company's overall profits from each of Amazon's business lines into new business ventures.
        maxerickson 8y ago
        Email sent!
    - neotek 8y ago
      Don't be so disingenuous. Nobody is claiming the cars don't exist, the point is that Musk continuously makes insane, overreaching predictions that almost never come to pass, like the ludicrous "three months maybe, six months definitely" fully autonomous driving nonsense, or promises that Model 3 production will be on track for x units per month when the actual numbers are half that, and so on. This is so typical of any discussion about Musk - anyone who dares point out that he often just makes things up is met with derision from True Believers who are unable to accept that he isn't the superhero his PR team make him out to be.
  - brightball 8y ago
    You did see him launch his car into space, right?
    - neotek 8y ago
      So? You couldn't have illustrated my point any better: Musk is a showman, he's great at drumming up PR but not so great at actually running a profitable business or hitting any of the milestones he constantly promises he'll hit.
      - kbenson 8y ago
        I think the point is that he's the CEO of both companies, and some of his wild claims were about building, launching and recovering rockets. Are we supposed to ignore SpaceX and just look at Tesla when considering Musk? You may consider that being a showman, and it was, but it was also showing his ability to delivery on some of his promises of rocket reusability. Anyone basing their opinion of Musk purely on his role and publicity from one of these companies when they are both so very public is the height of confirmation bias, in either direction.
    - Rebelgecko 8y ago
      Yes, although it turns out their stream was using fake footage for one of the boosters
      - dotancohen 8y ago
        This is the closest that I've ever felt the need to call someone an idiot on the internet. Both boosters' feeds were fed from the same booster, i.e. we were seeing the same image twice. That is _not_ fake.
        Rebelgecko 8y ago
        The footage itself was real video from a real camera, but the announcers said the footage was something different than it actually was. The YouTube _recording_ of the livestream was also edited after the fact without any mention that it no longer reflected the originally broadcast. While technically not 100% fake, I think at the very least it would be fair to call that misleading. If this is the closest you've ever come to calling someone on the internet an idiot, I applaud you for your restraint.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  My read of the email gave me the impression that the person had essentially confessed to doing the deed. So "making the accusation stick" should not be an issue right?
- gwern 8y ago
  Looks like it's real: lawsuit filed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356970
taneq 8y ago
While there's paranoia going around, I wonder whether whoever leaked that email first checked it for hidden Unicode fingerprinting... :P
- jethro_tell 8y ago
  And that's why you always send plain text email.
  - nixpulvis 8y ago
    Might be unclear, plaintext is usually Unicode these days.
obelix_ 8y ago
Everyone these days is being overloaded with an amount of information - they will never be trained to handle that no previous generation has ever handled What we are watching unfold across any and every issue, are symptoms of people breaking down due to that overload. To handle this new over saturated info environment (which up until now has been sold to everyone as a good thing) one must look to professions that are trained specifically to handle such overload. And there are many.
- pdfernhout 8y ago
  I agree information overload is a huge problem these days. I'd be curious for a list of the professions you had in mind (perhaps you mean librarians http://disciplineoforganizing.org/ http://disciplineoforganizing.org/ or professionals working in the "Seven Tribes" of Intelligence https://phibetaiota.net/about/ https://phibetaiota.net/about/ or like Doug Engelbart worked towards with Augment/CoDIAK/OHS http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html )? Maybe Musk does need to adopt better intelligence augmentation tools for the challenges he faces? But if so, he is not alone. Here are my own 2010 suggestion for helping deal with information overload: https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/-The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc.-/76207-8319 https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.idea... "This suggestion is about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines (including at a linked elaboration) why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such free and open source software (FOSS) "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security." Another version of that proposal: https://web.archive.org/web/20160206184804/https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/data/entries/twirlip-civic-sensemaking-project https://web.archive.org/web/20160206184804/https://www.newsc... Some thoughts by me on applying that to health sensemaking: https://web.archive.org/web/20161104203536/https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/healthdata/entries/health-sensemaking-software-tools https://web.archive.org/web/20161104203536/https://www.newsc... https://github.com/pdfernhout/health-decision-support-tools https://github.com/pdfernhout/health-decision-support-tools https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1897006&cid=34459370 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1897006&cid=34459370 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openvirgle/QukA-eEPXVg https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openvirgle/QukA-eEPX... https://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sensemaking https://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sense... Anyway, still plugging along on all that in some of my spare time. Another aspect of the challenge is having a mind tuned for a scarcity of something like information being having difficulty coping with an abundance of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose is a book by Deirdre Barrett published ... in 2010. Barrett is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. The book argues that human instincts for food, sex, and territorial protection evolved for life on the savannah 10,000 years ago, not for today's densely populated technological world. Our instincts have not had time to adapt to the rapid changes of modern life. The book takes its title from Nikolaas Tinbergen's concept in animal ethology of the supernormal stimulus, the phenomena by which insects, birds, and fish in his experiments could be lured by a dummy object which exaggerated one or more characteristic of the natural stimulus object such as giant brilliant blue plaster eggs which birds preferred to sit on in preference to their own. Barrett extends the concept to humans and outlines how supernormal stimuli are a driving force behind today’s most pressing problems, including modern warfare, obesity and other fitness problems, while also explaining the appeal of television, video games, and pornography as social outlets" "The Acceleration of Addictiveness" http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html "Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly." "The Pleasure Trap" http://web.archive.org/web/20160418155513/http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx http://web.archive.org/web/20160418155513/http://www.drfuhrm... "Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response "In his 2007 book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore posited that watching television affects the orienting response, an effect similar to vicarious traumatization." And how this overload is even harder on young children, as described by Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D.: https://drdunckley.com/reset-your-childs-brain/ https://drdunckley.com/reset-your-childs-brain/ "Because electronic screen media is unnaturally intense in terms of sensory, cognitive, and psychological input–designed to keep the user engaged–it tends to overstimulate nervous system. The brain interprets all this stimulating input as a form of stress. ... Over time, these changes lead to chronic stress, resulting in blood flow shifting from the more developed part of the brain (frontal lobe) to the more primitive parts of the brain. Because the frontal lobe governs emotional regulation, attention, creativity, and social behavior, any of these areas can become impaired. Chronic stress also raises cortisol levels, which complicates frontal lobe functioning even further. High cortisol impairs the hippocampus (needed for memory), disturbs sleep, and eventually causes atrophy (shrinkage) of the brain. ..." More and more we need a browser-like tool to protect us from the web and (anti-)social media. These would be tools that are designed to work within human limitations. They would help people deal with being sprayed in the face with a firehose of information designed by highly-paid specialists to trick us and exploit our basic reflexes for someone else's gain (e.g. filtering out or summarizing news tickers or videos with scene changes every few seconds that exploit the orienting response, or summarizing those clickbait headlines tuned to exploit our primal drives, and so on). Something like uMatrix is just the beginning. It shows where browser vendor's loyalties are (even Mozilla's) that such tools do not come built in. Very recently there is the Brave browser with some ad blocking and also Google turned on a limited default adblocker within Chrome -- but those are small steps and don't address the bigger picture of information overload even when not looking at obvious ads. People need a whole suite of related FOSS tools for dealing with the web, email, social media, and so on -- to help filter and organize it for ourselves according to our own priorities and respecting our human limitations. I comment from my bias as a software toolmaker though. Alternatively, a high level of self-discipline and healthy routine can also help manage information overload. And the professionals you reference probably can supply some of that (e.g. Alan Lakein's 1973 classic on setting priorities "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life").
wahern 8y ago
There's a $10+ billion short position against TSLA, constituting over 25% of outstanding shares. Anyone working at Tesla should be paranoid. Remember Enron? People invested deeply in something do criminally reprehensible things. Much more importantly, Musk made very concrete allegations, the truth of which should come to light in short order. I remember the insinuation SpaceX made during the 2016 incident, which was much more circumspect. If this allegation proves false I don't think people will be as forgetful about the attempt at blame shifting.
- manicdee 8y ago
  The thing about the sniper was addressing paranoia and reassuring staff that every suggestion is being taken seriously, and besides following a lead that is easy to dismiss means you get an early cheap win: a great way to relieve stress.
- Lavery 8y ago
  Your Enron example is worthwhile for the opposite reason you intended: there was a massive short position against Enron too, and corporate management accused the shorts of all manner of conspiracy, and the shorts were right. "People invested deeply in something" describes the management of fraudulent companies far more than it does short sellers. There's a quote from David Einhorn's book (that I think he attributes to Warren Buffet) that is something to the effect of: "When you're short a fraudulent company, you'll be surprised at the ends they'll go to defend themselves. Because to you this is 5% or whatever of your portfolio, but to them it is everything."
- cjhopman 8y ago
  "Her questions were so pointed that Enron's chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, called her unethical for failing to do more research. Three Enron executives flew to New York in an unsuccessful effort to convince her editors that she was wrongheaded. Enron's chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, called Fortune's managing editor, Rik Kirkland, to complain that Fortune was relying on a source who stood to profit if the share price fell."
- txsh 8y ago
  People are shorting Tesla because its CEO is mentally unstable, not because of some conspiracy.
pokemongoaway 8y ago
Everyone whose speech you don't like in 2018 is "literally" Trump, says the left and its proponents. What's your point, that his paranoia should be treated and he should hand his company over to the government? Either he is too careful in his speech or he is too paranoid - you can't have it both ways.
- nixpulvis 8y ago
  The left is pretty screwed up these days, but not as badly as the right. This email from Musk isn't at all the same as what we hear from the Trump camp. Sure he's talking about a conspiracy, but it's pretty reasonable, unlike the Trump conspiracies.
  - pokemongoaway 8y ago
    Yet I get down-voted to oblivion without reason or evidence :P
deleted 8y ago
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ricardobeat 8y ago
Fifteen years ago Echelon, NSA's email surveillance program, was considered a wild conspiracy on par with chemtrails. I think this kind of 'paranoia' is absolutely justified in today's world.
- rplst8 8y ago
  Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, the argument "you sound like a conspiracy theorist" doesn't hold water any more.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    Is the logic here that because some conspiracy theories have turned out to be true, all conspiracy theories are likely true? That seems... unwise.
    - AckSyn 8y ago
      Not the parent commenter, but it strikes me more as giving some consideration to wild ideas now when before it was outright dismissal, not that 'all conspiracy theories are likely true'.
    - mmjaa 8y ago
      No, the logic is that just calling something a conspiracy theory doesn't make it any less true. The term "conspiracy theory" has been socially engineered to automatically produce an 'ok, no need to think about it any more then' reaction, which is precisely the opposite of what needs to be done, in many cases, when enough evidence is gathered to the point that such theories are being formulated... especially when it involves known-nefarious actors and agents, such as the US government, top-secret military-industrial-complex inner societies, and so on.. too often, the general public is dissuaded by critical thought with a mere phrase or two. "Conspiracy theory" is one of those phrases that has been intentionally propagated in modern society to shut down attention.
      - killaken2000 8y ago
empath75 8y ago
Yeah he’s getting desperate. He’s actually a lot like trump in that all of his personal wealth is financed by debt. And his debt is backed by Tesla shares. If he ever gets margin called on his debt he’ll lose everything as he has to sell shares to cover his debt which will drive the price down more so he’ll have to sell more etc
notacoward 8y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe these allegations will turn out to have some merit. On the other hand, Musk has been sounding a bit like Trump lately ... and I don't just say that because I'm not a fan of either. There's a similar "I'm here to blow up the corrupt order and everything bad that happens is because of them conspiring against me" narrative at play. For Trump it's the Deep State. For Musk it's Big Oil or the Big Three or the short sellers. (BTW it's amazing how quickly several people jumped in right here with eerily similar-sounding "there are $X billion in shorts against TSLA" responses.) If Musk did have some evidence of sabotage, hinting at it but not actually revealing it would be just about the worst thing he could do, and whatever else he is he's not that stupid. It just doesn't add up.
- Ataraxy 8y ago
  Just as eery are the 5 comments in a row I just read comparing him to Trump.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    Oh, you mean all those responses to one top level comment, half of them quoting and/or disagreeing, vs. the "$10B in shorts" replies to every top-level comment? Totally the same thing. Both sides do it.
Jedd 8y ago
> Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive. Whereas my reading suggested a moderate and cautious response was being exercised. There is a lot of wealth resting on this and similar projects not succeeding. > And amazing how close his speech is moving (in form) to Trump's: it is all about "rumors", "alleged", "witch hunt", "unfair" 'all about' ? I'm not seeing the similarities at all. He used the word rumour, but you've introduced alleged, witch hunt, and unfair into the above quote.
- nixpulvis 8y ago
  Not to mention Trump would NEVER say: > Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole.
anonu 8y ago
I wouldn't suggest this to be paranoia. It's simply reality. Wall Street profits from the stock cratering right now. Its not unfathomable that some hedge fund would go to extreme lengths to embed a mole into the Tesla team to cause sabotage. There's a (mediocre) documentary on Netflix about Bill Ackman's famous Herbalife short. In there they detail the hundreds of $1000 spent just defending his short position through hiring former Herbalife people, funding legal campaigns, funding support groups. If you're short to the tune of a few $100 million - a few $100k is pocket change for these guys.
- venning 8y ago
  > the hundreds of $1000 spent just defending his short position through hiring former Herbalife people, funding legal campaigns, funding support groups You are describing entirely legal actions. Sabotage and (this form of) industrial espionage are very much illegal. There's quite a difference there. > a few $100k is pocket change for these guys But a few billion dollars of market cap and a few years of jail time are the price of being found guilty of what Musk is insinuating. That's not a small leap.
  - madaxe_again 8y ago
    Jail time? The SEC will just do the “this individual/corporation is important to the economy” thing and fine them some pocket change. The downside is far more limited than you might hope.
    - smadge 8y ago
      Can you provide examples of explicit corporate sabotage (e.g. criminally stopping production in a factory) being lightly punished by the SEC?
      - madaxe_again 8y ago
        No, because corporate sabotage is outside of their remit. They would only look at it within the realms of market manipulation and insider trading, for which the punishment is a) usually light and b) usually deflected onto a fall guy. In terms of the actual espionage end of things, it’s covered by EEA 1996 - and the prosecutions there have always gone for the hand, not the head, and the fines have been in the thousands, not millions, of dollars range. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_19...
duxup 8y ago
He might sound Trumpish, he might be paranoid, but it does sound like he has something more concrete in terms of an actual event that triggered this email than typical Trumpism.
thisisit 8y ago
> Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive. Exactly. It is surprising people pointing out - "Well, so many shorts etc so it's plausible". This kind of reasoning misses the bigger point - we need our leaders, political and otherwise, to refrain from actively pumping out conspiracy theories. If there is proof of malicious behavior present it instead of rumor mongering. But given Musk's(Tesla) constant need to shift blame - car crash, negative news (Pravado), deflecting questions on financial situation of Tesla and now this, it is not looking good for Tesla. I hope that next time there is a problem Musk stops at "we are investigating if this is a sabotage" instead of fueling the "it's Wall Street shorts" conspiracy.
- misterhtmlcss 8y ago
  There are far more people aligned against him, so it's easy for him to feel defensive. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if there was something bad going on with their finances, but I'd ALSO easily believe that there are actors very very actively working against him and Tesla. Google and Apple can grow without restraint because until they were massive they didn't affect anyone, Tesla from day 1 flew against the grain and is upsetting hundreds of thousands of jobs from corporations to unions. His company matters if it succeeds and anyone with common sense can easily imagine a mole.
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    > Google and Apple can grow without restraint because until they were massive they didn't affect anyone Microsoft in particular lost an entire industry and way of doing business, partly (or maybe mostly) because of Apple and Google. It was only about 5 years ago that the “us vs them” mindset started to dissipate.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I don't think the comparison there is entirely apt. Microsoft was really killed off by the cycle rate of desktops radically decreasing as even decade old machines started to be good enough for everything except for extremely high performance usage like gaming, and mobile starting to advance enough to work as an alternative computing platform for many purposes. For direct competition in what was their bread and butter (desktop OS) - even Apple is still completely negligible. Musk's competition against the automotive and space industry companies has been very direct, and his competition against the petrol industry has been at most with one degree of separation. And like others have said, there is a huge short position against Tesla that has cost people an immense amount of money, but also stands to make them an immense amount of money if Tesla tanks.
SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
So should our cynicism with respect to corporate ethics be aimed at Tesla only? Or do other corporations sometimes do bad/unethical/paranoid/greedy things too? I suppose its just Tesla.
- FearOfReprisal 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Got anything else?
jon_richards 8y ago
>Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole. Occasionally, it is much more serious. Literally the next paragraph. It would be irresponsible of him not to look into the possibility.
colordrops 8y ago
You've got to be kidding right? One could easily create a list of 1000s of instances of corruption and corporate warfare in the US. And in China it's worse by a couple orders of magnitude, and more visible. Millions of people have been murdered over money let alone sabotaging a company. Lets not call others paranoid when it's actually naivety of these problems that is the issue.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > One could easily create a list of 1000s of instances of corruption and corporate warfare in the US Help me out.
  - apoorvkumar 8y ago
    It's not a difficult thing to look up. https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/fbi-economic-espionage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/fbi-economic-espiona...
  - orbifold 8y ago
    Just look at the history of Congo for a continuous stream of examples starting with the colonization up to the various “humanitarian” interventions by “peacekeeping” forces.
sidcool 8y ago
Oil corporations have done that in the past. EVs were in market before but brutally stalled. I don't see that claim outlandish.
- Ataraxy 8y ago
  "Who Killed The Electric Car" was a really interesting documentary.
whalesalad 8y ago
Nothing paranoid about this. Data exfiltration and corporate sabatoge is very real. There are entire departments at large companies dedicated to protecting against things like this. So many industries that were threatened or upended went though similar exercises. Tobacco being one of the best examples. We also went through a huge mid-century renaissance in public transit that was abruptly put to an end due largely to gas and car companies. Trains got replaced by buses because tire and oil companies felt threatened. Remember the EV1?
colechristensen 8y ago
It doesn't strike me as paranoia. Thinking that industrial espionage doesn't happen seems naive. What they have is an admitted saboteur and code that exports data to third parties. It quacks like a duck. A disgruntled employee succumbed to or sought out people who wished to do harm to Tesla. There's plenty of evidence of similar things happening. (edit to fix words) If you work in the defense industry you get things like this drilled into you as regular required training. It's not paranoia, it happens regularly. He's a bit odd in how he addresses the problem, and calling out potential threats was perhaps an unusual choice, but not unwarranted. American companies have overthrown governments to benefit their business, stealing secrets and sabotaging a competitor isn't exactly out of the ordinary.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  Great comment, but I’m not sure what events you’re referring to when you say: > American companies have overthrown governments to benefit their business Care to elaborate?
  - mikeytown2 8y ago
    Iran in the 1950s
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Not the parent but this example comes to mind : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... (A British multinational company, but US did the overthrowing)
  - TomVDB 8y ago
    My immediate reaction would be the United Fruit Company and it’s dealings in South America. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company But I’m sure you can find instances where oil companies heavily influence politics in governments all over the world.
  - nope96 8y ago
pacnard 8y ago
Good to see for once someone with influence being so clear.
socrates666 8y ago
It's uncanny how common this comment is.
rorykoehler 8y ago
That's not paranoia, it's realism. Also this everyone is against us tactic is a very powerful management stick. Sir Alex Ferguson was a master of using it.
dimgl 8y ago
I really don't understand why you're comparing his diction to Trump's when lots of proficient orators use the same kind of language... So... yeah...
diffeomorphism 8y ago
How can it be paranoia if you have a clear, documented case of sabotage?
pnathan 8y ago
He's not wrong in saying some of the major interests that have held corporate power for some 100+ years would love to see Tesla die. It would be in character for a fearful power to strike at an upstart adversary. He does sound on edge, but there's apparently been a major breach, so... probably appropriate.
skocznymroczny 8y ago
I find it ironic how you relate 'alleged' and 'rumors' to Trump, given that most of his criticism is in such a form. "Anonymous sources report", "allegedly Trump is involved in", "rumours at the White House are that", "Trump may have xyz".

gwern 8y ago

I guess we'll see how serious they are about these accusations if they sue the employee or file criminal charges; if the industrial espionage & sabotage accusations are true, it should be easy to make them stick - and having told the whole company about them, Musk now needs to take action or else forfeit credibility & deterrence (both for not being a liar, and for punishing theft/sabotage).

neotek 8y ago
The fact Musk still has any credibility at all given his penchant for making wild claims that inevitably fall flat is baffling to me. How many more spurious predictions and imaginary milestones does he need to pump out before people recognise him for the huckster monorail salesman that he is?
- manicdee 8y ago
  For a huckster he’s doing a damn good job of fake shipping fake cars to fake customers who fake drive them in fake public. Excellent scam, would invest again.
  - jethro_tell 8y ago
    There's a huge difference between shipping a product and doing it profitably.
    - icantdrive55 8y ago
      Like the rest, he will eventually move manufacturing overseas, and all will be happy. If I had the money, I would be happy just to be on the waiting list. It's got to be a good feeling you're waiting/driving to a American made vechicle? A vechicle that payed the help(blue collar workers) a living wage? Or, close to a living wage? I'm a Musk fanboy I guess?
    - berbec 8y ago
      You should tell Bezos that.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        Bezos can and does ship products profitably across multiple, disparate markets. He simply reinvests the company's overall profits from each of Amazon's business lines into new business ventures.
      - maxerickson 8y ago
        Email sent!
  - neotek 8y ago
    Don't be so disingenuous. Nobody is claiming the cars don't exist, the point is that Musk continuously makes insane, overreaching predictions that almost never come to pass, like the ludicrous "three months maybe, six months definitely" fully autonomous driving nonsense, or promises that Model 3 production will be on track for x units per month when the actual numbers are half that, and so on. This is so typical of any discussion about Musk - anyone who dares point out that he often just makes things up is met with derision from True Believers who are unable to accept that he isn't the superhero his PR team make him out to be.
- brightball 8y ago
  You did see him launch his car into space, right?
  - neotek 8y ago
    So? You couldn't have illustrated my point any better: Musk is a showman, he's great at drumming up PR but not so great at actually running a profitable business or hitting any of the milestones he constantly promises he'll hit.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      I think the point is that he's the CEO of both companies, and some of his wild claims were about building, launching and recovering rockets. Are we supposed to ignore SpaceX and just look at Tesla when considering Musk? You may consider that being a showman, and it was, but it was also showing his ability to delivery on some of his promises of rocket reusability. Anyone basing their opinion of Musk purely on his role and publicity from one of these companies when they are both so very public is the height of confirmation bias, in either direction.
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Yes, although it turns out their stream was using fake footage for one of the boosters
    - dotancohen 8y ago
      This is the closest that I've ever felt the need to call someone an idiot on the internet. Both boosters' feeds were fed from the same booster, i.e. we were seeing the same image twice. That is _not_ fake.
      - Rebelgecko 8y ago
        The footage itself was real video from a real camera, but the announcers said the footage was something different than it actually was. The YouTube _recording_ of the livestream was also edited after the fact without any mention that it no longer reflected the originally broadcast. While technically not 100% fake, I think at the very least it would be fair to call that misleading. If this is the closest you've ever come to calling someone on the internet an idiot, I applaud you for your restraint.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
My read of the email gave me the impression that the person had essentially confessed to doing the deed. So "making the accusation stick" should not be an issue right?
gwern 8y ago
Looks like it's real: lawsuit filed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17356970

taneq 8y ago

While there's paranoia going around, I wonder whether whoever leaked that email first checked it for hidden Unicode fingerprinting... :P

jethro_tell 8y ago
And that's why you always send plain text email.
- nixpulvis 8y ago
  Might be unclear, plaintext is usually Unicode these days.

obelix_ 8y ago

Everyone these days is being overloaded with an amount of information - they will never be trained to handle that no previous generation has ever handled What we are watching unfold across any and every issue, are symptoms of people breaking down due to that overload. To handle this new over saturated info environment (which up until now has been sold to everyone as a good thing) one must look to professions that are trained specifically to handle such overload. And there are many.

pdfernhout 8y ago
I agree information overload is a huge problem these days. I'd be curious for a list of the professions you had in mind (perhaps you mean librarians http://disciplineoforganizing.org/ http://disciplineoforganizing.org/ or professionals working in the "Seven Tribes" of Intelligence https://phibetaiota.net/about/ https://phibetaiota.net/about/ or like Doug Engelbart worked towards with Augment/CoDIAK/OHS http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html )? Maybe Musk does need to adopt better intelligence augmentation tools for the challenges he faces? But if so, he is not alone. Here are my own 2010 suggestion for helping deal with information overload: https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/-The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc.-/76207-8319 https://web.archive.org/web/20130514103318/http://pcast.idea... "This suggestion is about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines (including at a linked elaboration) why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such free and open source software (FOSS) "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security." Another version of that proposal: https://web.archive.org/web/20160206184804/https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/data/entries/twirlip-civic-sensemaking-project https://web.archive.org/web/20160206184804/https://www.newsc... Some thoughts by me on applying that to health sensemaking: https://web.archive.org/web/20161104203536/https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/healthdata/entries/health-sensemaking-software-tools https://web.archive.org/web/20161104203536/https://www.newsc... https://github.com/pdfernhout/health-decision-support-tools https://github.com/pdfernhout/health-decision-support-tools https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1897006&cid=34459370 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1897006&cid=34459370 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openvirgle/QukA-eEPXVg https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/openvirgle/QukA-eEPX... https://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sensemaking https://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sense... Anyway, still plugging along on all that in some of my spare time. Another aspect of the challenge is having a mind tuned for a scarcity of something like information being having difficulty coping with an abundance of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose is a book by Deirdre Barrett published ... in 2010. Barrett is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. The book argues that human instincts for food, sex, and territorial protection evolved for life on the savannah 10,000 years ago, not for today's densely populated technological world. Our instincts have not had time to adapt to the rapid changes of modern life. The book takes its title from Nikolaas Tinbergen's concept in animal ethology of the supernormal stimulus, the phenomena by which insects, birds, and fish in his experiments could be lured by a dummy object which exaggerated one or more characteristic of the natural stimulus object such as giant brilliant blue plaster eggs which birds preferred to sit on in preference to their own. Barrett extends the concept to humans and outlines how supernormal stimuli are a driving force behind today’s most pressing problems, including modern warfare, obesity and other fitness problems, while also explaining the appeal of television, video games, and pornography as social outlets" "The Acceleration of Addictiveness" http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html "Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly." "The Pleasure Trap" http://web.archive.org/web/20160418155513/http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx http://web.archive.org/web/20160418155513/http://www.drfuhrm... "Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienting_response "In his 2007 book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore posited that watching television affects the orienting response, an effect similar to vicarious traumatization." And how this overload is even harder on young children, as described by Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D.: https://drdunckley.com/reset-your-childs-brain/ https://drdunckley.com/reset-your-childs-brain/ "Because electronic screen media is unnaturally intense in terms of sensory, cognitive, and psychological input–designed to keep the user engaged–it tends to overstimulate nervous system. The brain interprets all this stimulating input as a form of stress. ... Over time, these changes lead to chronic stress, resulting in blood flow shifting from the more developed part of the brain (frontal lobe) to the more primitive parts of the brain. Because the frontal lobe governs emotional regulation, attention, creativity, and social behavior, any of these areas can become impaired. Chronic stress also raises cortisol levels, which complicates frontal lobe functioning even further. High cortisol impairs the hippocampus (needed for memory), disturbs sleep, and eventually causes atrophy (shrinkage) of the brain. ..." More and more we need a browser-like tool to protect us from the web and (anti-)social media. These would be tools that are designed to work within human limitations. They would help people deal with being sprayed in the face with a firehose of information designed by highly-paid specialists to trick us and exploit our basic reflexes for someone else's gain (e.g. filtering out or summarizing news tickers or videos with scene changes every few seconds that exploit the orienting response, or summarizing those clickbait headlines tuned to exploit our primal drives, and so on). Something like uMatrix is just the beginning. It shows where browser vendor's loyalties are (even Mozilla's) that such tools do not come built in. Very recently there is the Brave browser with some ad blocking and also Google turned on a limited default adblocker within Chrome -- but those are small steps and don't address the bigger picture of information overload even when not looking at obvious ads. People need a whole suite of related FOSS tools for dealing with the web, email, social media, and so on -- to help filter and organize it for ourselves according to our own priorities and respecting our human limitations. I comment from my bias as a software toolmaker though. Alternatively, a high level of self-discipline and healthy routine can also help manage information overload. And the professionals you reference probably can supply some of that (e.g. Alan Lakein's 1973 classic on setting priorities "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life").

wahern 8y ago

There's a $10+ billion short position against TSLA, constituting over 25% of outstanding shares. Anyone working at Tesla should be paranoid. Remember Enron? People invested deeply in something do criminally reprehensible things. Much more importantly, Musk made very concrete allegations, the truth of which should come to light in short order. I remember the insinuation SpaceX made during the 2016 incident, which was much more circumspect. If this allegation proves false I don't think people will be as forgetful about the attempt at blame shifting.

manicdee 8y ago
The thing about the sniper was addressing paranoia and reassuring staff that every suggestion is being taken seriously, and besides following a lead that is easy to dismiss means you get an early cheap win: a great way to relieve stress.
Lavery 8y ago
Your Enron example is worthwhile for the opposite reason you intended: there was a massive short position against Enron too, and corporate management accused the shorts of all manner of conspiracy, and the shorts were right. "People invested deeply in something" describes the management of fraudulent companies far more than it does short sellers. There's a quote from David Einhorn's book (that I think he attributes to Warren Buffet) that is something to the effect of: "When you're short a fraudulent company, you'll be surprised at the ends they'll go to defend themselves. Because to you this is 5% or whatever of your portfolio, but to them it is everything."
cjhopman 8y ago
"Her questions were so pointed that Enron's chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, called her unethical for failing to do more research. Three Enron executives flew to New York in an unsuccessful effort to convince her editors that she was wrongheaded. Enron's chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, called Fortune's managing editor, Rik Kirkland, to complain that Fortune was relying on a source who stood to profit if the share price fell."
txsh 8y ago
People are shorting Tesla because its CEO is mentally unstable, not because of some conspiracy.

pokemongoaway 8y ago

Everyone whose speech you don't like in 2018 is "literally" Trump, says the left and its proponents. What's your point, that his paranoia should be treated and he should hand his company over to the government? Either he is too careful in his speech or he is too paranoid - you can't have it both ways.

nixpulvis 8y ago
The left is pretty screwed up these days, but not as badly as the right. This email from Musk isn't at all the same as what we hear from the Trump camp. Sure he's talking about a conspiracy, but it's pretty reasonable, unlike the Trump conspiracies.
- pokemongoaway 8y ago
  Yet I get down-voted to oblivion without reason or evidence :P

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ricardobeat 8y ago

Fifteen years ago Echelon, NSA's email surveillance program, was considered a wild conspiracy on par with chemtrails. I think this kind of 'paranoia' is absolutely justified in today's world.

rplst8 8y ago
Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, the argument "you sound like a conspiracy theorist" doesn't hold water any more.
- pwinnski 8y ago
  Is the logic here that because some conspiracy theories have turned out to be true, all conspiracy theories are likely true? That seems... unwise.
  - AckSyn 8y ago
    Not the parent commenter, but it strikes me more as giving some consideration to wild ideas now when before it was outright dismissal, not that 'all conspiracy theories are likely true'.
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    No, the logic is that just calling something a conspiracy theory doesn't make it any less true. The term "conspiracy theory" has been socially engineered to automatically produce an 'ok, no need to think about it any more then' reaction, which is precisely the opposite of what needs to be done, in many cases, when enough evidence is gathered to the point that such theories are being formulated... especially when it involves known-nefarious actors and agents, such as the US government, top-secret military-industrial-complex inner societies, and so on.. too often, the general public is dissuaded by critical thought with a mere phrase or two. "Conspiracy theory" is one of those phrases that has been intentionally propagated in modern society to shut down attention.
    - killaken2000 8y ago

empath75 8y ago

Yeah he’s getting desperate. He’s actually a lot like trump in that all of his personal wealth is financed by debt. And his debt is backed by Tesla shares. If he ever gets margin called on his debt he’ll lose everything as he has to sell shares to cover his debt which will drive the price down more so he’ll have to sell more etc

notacoward 8y ago

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe these allegations will turn out to have some merit. On the other hand, Musk has been sounding a bit like Trump lately ... and I don't just say that because I'm not a fan of either. There's a similar "I'm here to blow up the corrupt order and everything bad that happens is because of them conspiring against me" narrative at play. For Trump it's the Deep State. For Musk it's Big Oil or the Big Three or the short sellers. (BTW it's amazing how quickly several people jumped in right here with eerily similar-sounding "there are $X billion in shorts against TSLA" responses.) If Musk did have some evidence of sabotage, hinting at it but not actually revealing it would be just about the worst thing he could do, and whatever else he is he's not that stupid. It just doesn't add up.

Ataraxy 8y ago
Just as eery are the 5 comments in a row I just read comparing him to Trump.
- notacoward 8y ago
  Oh, you mean all those responses to one top level comment, half of them quoting and/or disagreeing, vs. the "$10B in shorts" replies to every top-level comment? Totally the same thing. Both sides do it.

Jedd 8y ago

> Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive. Whereas my reading suggested a moderate and cautious response was being exercised. There is a lot of wealth resting on this and similar projects not succeeding. > And amazing how close his speech is moving (in form) to Trump's: it is all about "rumors", "alleged", "witch hunt", "unfair" 'all about' ? I'm not seeing the similarities at all. He used the word rumour, but you've introduced alleged, witch hunt, and unfair into the above quote.

nixpulvis 8y ago
Not to mention Trump would NEVER say: > Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole.

anonu 8y ago

I wouldn't suggest this to be paranoia. It's simply reality. Wall Street profits from the stock cratering right now. Its not unfathomable that some hedge fund would go to extreme lengths to embed a mole into the Tesla team to cause sabotage. There's a (mediocre) documentary on Netflix about Bill Ackman's famous Herbalife short. In there they detail the hundreds of $1000 spent just defending his short position through hiring former Herbalife people, funding legal campaigns, funding support groups. If you're short to the tune of a few $100 million - a few $100k is pocket change for these guys.

venning 8y ago
> the hundreds of $1000 spent just defending his short position through hiring former Herbalife people, funding legal campaigns, funding support groups You are describing entirely legal actions. Sabotage and (this form of) industrial espionage are very much illegal. There's quite a difference there. > a few $100k is pocket change for these guys But a few billion dollars of market cap and a few years of jail time are the price of being found guilty of what Musk is insinuating. That's not a small leap.
- madaxe_again 8y ago
  Jail time? The SEC will just do the “this individual/corporation is important to the economy” thing and fine them some pocket change. The downside is far more limited than you might hope.
  - smadge 8y ago
    Can you provide examples of explicit corporate sabotage (e.g. criminally stopping production in a factory) being lightly punished by the SEC?
    - madaxe_again 8y ago
      No, because corporate sabotage is outside of their remit. They would only look at it within the realms of market manipulation and insider trading, for which the punishment is a) usually light and b) usually deflected onto a fall guy. In terms of the actual espionage end of things, it’s covered by EEA 1996 - and the prosecutions there have always gone for the hand, not the head, and the fines have been in the thousands, not millions, of dollars range. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_19...

duxup 8y ago

He might sound Trumpish, he might be paranoid, but it does sound like he has something more concrete in terms of an actual event that triggered this email than typical Trumpism.

thisisit 8y ago

> Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive. Exactly. It is surprising people pointing out - "Well, so many shorts etc so it's plausible". This kind of reasoning misses the bigger point - we need our leaders, political and otherwise, to refrain from actively pumping out conspiracy theories. If there is proof of malicious behavior present it instead of rumor mongering. But given Musk's(Tesla) constant need to shift blame - car crash, negative news (Pravado), deflecting questions on financial situation of Tesla and now this, it is not looking good for Tesla. I hope that next time there is a problem Musk stops at "we are investigating if this is a sabotage" instead of fueling the "it's Wall Street shorts" conspiracy.

misterhtmlcss 8y ago
There are far more people aligned against him, so it's easy for him to feel defensive. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if there was something bad going on with their finances, but I'd ALSO easily believe that there are actors very very actively working against him and Tesla. Google and Apple can grow without restraint because until they were massive they didn't affect anyone, Tesla from day 1 flew against the grain and is upsetting hundreds of thousands of jobs from corporations to unions. His company matters if it succeeds and anyone with common sense can easily imagine a mole.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  > Google and Apple can grow without restraint because until they were massive they didn't affect anyone Microsoft in particular lost an entire industry and way of doing business, partly (or maybe mostly) because of Apple and Google. It was only about 5 years ago that the “us vs them” mindset started to dissipate.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I don't think the comparison there is entirely apt. Microsoft was really killed off by the cycle rate of desktops radically decreasing as even decade old machines started to be good enough for everything except for extremely high performance usage like gaming, and mobile starting to advance enough to work as an alternative computing platform for many purposes. For direct competition in what was their bread and butter (desktop OS) - even Apple is still completely negligible. Musk's competition against the automotive and space industry companies has been very direct, and his competition against the petrol industry has been at most with one degree of separation. And like others have said, there is a huge short position against Tesla that has cost people an immense amount of money, but also stands to make them an immense amount of money if Tesla tanks.

SmirkingRevenge 8y ago

So should our cynicism with respect to corporate ethics be aimed at Tesla only? Or do other corporations sometimes do bad/unethical/paranoid/greedy things too? I suppose its just Tesla.

FearOfReprisal 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Got anything else?

jon_richards 8y ago

>Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole. Occasionally, it is much more serious. Literally the next paragraph. It would be irresponsible of him not to look into the possibility.

colordrops 8y ago

You've got to be kidding right? One could easily create a list of 1000s of instances of corruption and corporate warfare in the US. And in China it's worse by a couple orders of magnitude, and more visible. Millions of people have been murdered over money let alone sabotaging a company. Lets not call others paranoid when it's actually naivety of these problems that is the issue.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> One could easily create a list of 1000s of instances of corruption and corporate warfare in the US Help me out.
- apoorvkumar 8y ago
  It's not a difficult thing to look up. https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/fbi-economic-espionage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/fbi-economic-espiona...
- orbifold 8y ago
  Just look at the history of Congo for a continuous stream of examples starting with the colonization up to the various “humanitarian” interventions by “peacekeeping” forces.

sidcool 8y ago

Oil corporations have done that in the past. EVs were in market before but brutally stalled. I don't see that claim outlandish.

Ataraxy 8y ago
"Who Killed The Electric Car" was a really interesting documentary.

whalesalad 8y ago

Nothing paranoid about this. Data exfiltration and corporate sabatoge is very real. There are entire departments at large companies dedicated to protecting against things like this. So many industries that were threatened or upended went though similar exercises. Tobacco being one of the best examples. We also went through a huge mid-century renaissance in public transit that was abruptly put to an end due largely to gas and car companies. Trains got replaced by buses because tire and oil companies felt threatened. Remember the EV1?

colechristensen 8y ago

It doesn't strike me as paranoia. Thinking that industrial espionage doesn't happen seems naive. What they have is an admitted saboteur and code that exports data to third parties. It quacks like a duck. A disgruntled employee succumbed to or sought out people who wished to do harm to Tesla. There's plenty of evidence of similar things happening. (edit to fix words) If you work in the defense industry you get things like this drilled into you as regular required training. It's not paranoia, it happens regularly. He's a bit odd in how he addresses the problem, and calling out potential threats was perhaps an unusual choice, but not unwarranted. American companies have overthrown governments to benefit their business, stealing secrets and sabotaging a competitor isn't exactly out of the ordinary.

TimTheTinker 8y ago
Great comment, but I’m not sure what events you’re referring to when you say: > American companies have overthrown governments to benefit their business Care to elaborate?
- mikeytown2 8y ago
  Iran in the 1950s
- dboreham 8y ago
  Not the parent but this example comes to mind : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... (A British multinational company, but US did the overthrowing)
- TomVDB 8y ago
  My immediate reaction would be the United Fruit Company and it’s dealings in South America. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company But I’m sure you can find instances where oil companies heavily influence politics in governments all over the world.
- nope96 8y ago

pacnard 8y ago

Good to see for once someone with influence being so clear.

socrates666 8y ago

It's uncanny how common this comment is.

rorykoehler 8y ago

That's not paranoia, it's realism. Also this everyone is against us tactic is a very powerful management stick. Sir Alex Ferguson was a master of using it.

dimgl 8y ago

I really don't understand why you're comparing his diction to Trump's when lots of proficient orators use the same kind of language... So... yeah...

diffeomorphism 8y ago

How can it be paranoia if you have a clear, documented case of sabotage?

pnathan 8y ago

He's not wrong in saying some of the major interests that have held corporate power for some 100+ years would love to see Tesla die. It would be in character for a fearful power to strike at an upstart adversary. He does sound on edge, but there's apparently been a major breach, so... probably appropriate.

skocznymroczny 8y ago

I find it ironic how you relate 'alleged' and 'rumors' to Trump, given that most of his criticism is in such a form. "Anonymous sources report", "allegedly Trump is involved in", "rumours at the White House are that", "Trump may have xyz".