5 ms·

What about making a prediction while being, as you're saying it, 95% sure its bullshit? Is that not lying? When does it become lying, when you're 100% sure yo

What about making a prediction while being, as you're saying it, 95% sure its bullshit? Is that not lying? When does it become lying, when you're 100% sure you're not saying the truth?

seanw444 5y ago
Seems very presumptuous to assume Musk knows that he won't hit his goals. Most people make goals to try to hit them. He probably was bent on achieving that, and hit a snag.
joshmlewis 5y ago
I think he makes these predictions based on the absolute best case scenario he can think of. It's hard to prove he had fraudulent intent unless you had communication from him that showed he knew what he was saying was impossible.
JCharante 5y ago
It becomes lying when it can be proved to be false. Stating that your company currently provides 200 blood analysis when it does not is very easy to disprove given insider documentation. Saying that by next year you'll be able to support the 1000 most common blood analysis is not lying, it's a somewhat of a promise but of course projects go behind schedule all the time. There's a difference between saying I weigh less than 90kg and I will weigh less than 90kg by next year.
bravo22 5y ago
Because she took things that she knew to be not true and said the they were true in order to get money. She didn't say we hope to work with the US Army or that we plan to. She said that units were in use by them. She didn't say the devices are on the verge of being used to analyze blood samples. She said that they were indeed being used to analyze a high percentage of the samples. Many, many other examples. That's the plain definition of fraud. When the speaker implies uncertainty it is difficult for the investor to claim fraud because uncertainty was expressed to them. That the speaker "knows" the 95% figure is BS is very difficult to prove and generally everyone treats it as BS/puffing anyways. If you could easily show that the CEO saying hitting the next milestone is 95% in the bag but in fact it is impossible AND they said so to others in private then that would also be prosecutable fraud.

What about making a prediction while being, as you're saying it, 95% sure its bullshit? Is that not lying? When does it become lying, when you're 100% sure you're not saying the truth?

seanw444 5y ago

Seems very presumptuous to assume Musk knows that he won't hit his goals. Most people make goals to try to hit them. He probably was bent on achieving that, and hit a snag.

joshmlewis 5y ago

I think he makes these predictions based on the absolute best case scenario he can think of. It's hard to prove he had fraudulent intent unless you had communication from him that showed he knew what he was saying was impossible.

JCharante 5y ago

It becomes lying when it can be proved to be false. Stating that your company currently provides 200 blood analysis when it does not is very easy to disprove given insider documentation. Saying that by next year you'll be able to support the 1000 most common blood analysis is not lying, it's a somewhat of a promise but of course projects go behind schedule all the time. There's a difference between saying I weigh less than 90kg and I will weigh less than 90kg by next year.

bravo22 5y ago

Because she took things that she knew to be not true and said the they were true in order to get money. She didn't say we hope to work with the US Army or that we plan to. She said that units were in use by them. She didn't say the devices are on the verge of being used to analyze blood samples. She said that they were indeed being used to analyze a high percentage of the samples. Many, many other examples. That's the plain definition of fraud. When the speaker implies uncertainty it is difficult for the investor to claim fraud because uncertainty was expressed to them. That the speaker "knows" the 95% figure is BS is very difficult to prove and generally everyone treats it as BS/puffing anyways. If you could easily show that the CEO saying hitting the next milestone is 95% in the bag but in fact it is impossible AND they said so to others in private then that would also be prosecutable fraud.