5 ms·

Tesla fan sites propagate fake news of chip joint venture, but why?

85 points by imartin2k 4y ago

aeternum 4y ago
Perhaps the news companies attempting to show that the new citizen journalists also do not check their sources?
JPLeRouzic 4y ago
- Xylakant 4y ago
  The article continues to say that Zurichfund itself is fake, so you can’t take their website as source of truth. You’d first need to establish that Zurich Fund exists.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    The Zurich Fund website's contents appears to be largely copy-pasted from Goldman Sachs. Brazil Sao Paulo - Zurich Fund Management Brasil Ltda. Rua Leopoldo Couto Magalhães Junior 702, 16 andar Itaim Bibi 04542-000 São Paulo-SP http://zurichfund.com/locations/ http://zurichfund.com/locations/ Brazil Sao Paulo - Goldman Sachs Asset Management Brasil Ltda. Rua Leopoldo Couto Magalhães Junior 700, 16 andar Itaim Bibi 04542-000 São Paulo-SP https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/locations.html https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/locations.html Their supposed headquarters of "Bahnhofstrasse 55, Zurich" doesn't even exist (there is a 53/55 though), and the search and replace on the Chairman's Letter missed Blackstone's ticker (BX) and their BCRED fund (bcred.com). http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/ http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      According to the article, they also use stock photos for their staff, which would be a huge red flag.
- ncallaway 4y ago
  That specific website and press release are mentioned in the article: > Zurich Fund also appears to be a completely made-up company. The website has the same design as Annex’s, and it is also full of vague and generic information. Its “our people” page actually profiles two executives, but they are both made up with stock images for their profiles: > I couldn’t find anyone matching those names and profiles. Like Annex, the only reference that I could find about the Zurich Fund is a press release about it buying Annex in June. No other information about the company is available nor does anyone claim to be working for the company. So linking to that press release doesn’t seem to contradict the claims from the article. Have you found any other sources referring to the acquisition, or indicating that the executive on the About Us page of Zurich Fund existing? I’m open to the idea that the authors claim is incorrect, but this link at least seems to support rather than refute the claims made by Elektrek
- captn3m0 4y ago
  The Zurichfund website is hosted on GoDaddy, but more surprisingly - the MX records point to qq.com. Couldn't find any evidence for the companies listed on opencorporates.com. Lots of claims on [1] are also clearly fake: > Zurich Fund’s market capitalization has grown to $90 billion, making our firm the 92nd largest U.S public company. I couldn't find a single mention as ZurichFund being an investory in many of the companies listed: Ancestry, HealthEdge, 21Vianet, ClearGen, Altus Power, DCI, Kronos and Ultimate Software, Bridger Aerospace. They claim a $100M investment in TWTR in 2017, so someone could check that perhaps?[2] [1]: http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/ http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/ [2]: http://zurichfund.com/private-equity/#portfolio http://zurichfund.com/private-equity/#portfolio
  - SargeDebian 4y ago
    The internet archive has first indexed their site in 2021, so if they existed in 2017, that would be interesting. Here's the Yandex (weirdly the best results) search for images similar to their Sr Managing Director: https://yandex.com/images/search?source=collections&rpt=imageview&url=https%3A%2F%2Favatars.mds.yandex.net%2Fget-images-cbir%2F905027%2F7HR9OcF-2f6B5iDZth5ETg3699%2Forig&cbir_id=905027%2F7HR9OcF-2f6B5iDZth5ETg3699 https://yandex.com/images/search?source=collections&rpt=imag...
choeger 4y ago
Money laundering? Intelligence front? Maybe someone tried to create a legend and Tesla fans noticed it too early? Another option: Say you want to fake your way into C-level positions. Is it out of the question that you could invest a couple of years into creating a fake success career by making up such firms and then mention them in your CV?
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Yes, but "Werner-von-Volkswagen-Strasse". On the other hand, who knows. Stupider things have worked, many times before.
sva_ 4y ago
> Werner-von-Volkswagen-Strasse Seems legit
- matzab 4y ago
  It's obviously right next to Klaus-von-Bayerische-Motorenwerke-Straße. They didn't even try to seem legit, did they?
  - rob74 4y ago
    ...at the intersection with Adalbert-Audi-Ring.
  - antonvs 4y ago
    Could be the old scammer tactic of screening out skeptics early.
- SargeDebian 4y ago
  There are multiple streets named after Werner von Braun and Werner von Siemens, so why not just take another well known German brand as your fake company’s fake address?
  - sva_ 4y ago
    It makes me feel like this isn't trying to fool westerners, but rather other asians/Chinese.
  - xg15 4y ago
    Bit disappointed their US headquarters weren't at General Edison Motors Plaza.
  - rob74 4y ago
    Yeah that's just bad luck - most German companies (Siemens, Bosch, Opel, Thyssen-Krupp, Daimler etc. etc.) are named after people, but they picked Volkswagen, one of the few that isn't...
- netsharc 4y ago
michelb 4y ago
It may not be the 'Tesla' we know. "Tesla Motors Limited" holds 5% of Annex, but the official subsidiaries of Tesla Inc. in China are named 'Tesla', not "Tesla Motors Limited". There a ton of companies named 'Tesla' in China.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I was assuming this would be a pump-and-dump scheme. What's even the point if there's not a penny stock with that name?
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  They were pumping TSLA.
maxbond 4y ago
My suspicion would be that this was a legend to back a face to face scam, perhaps seeking investment in the fictional company so that they can pursue this venture.
mupuff1234 4y ago
"Tesla blogs" make it sound like those are official company blogs but they're just a bunch of fan sites.
- mcv 4y ago
  This is a very important distinction to make. "Tesla fan blogs" would be a better description than "Tesla blogs".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 7e 4y ago
  If they were official, it would read “Tesla’s blogs.”
  - prds_lost 4y ago
    To be fair, Tesla's version of official is a tweet from the Chief Twit.
- dang 4y ago
  Ok, we've put fan sites up there. Thanks!
heavyset_go 4y ago
It's because there's a weird cottage industry that has sprung up to write fluff about Tesla and launder their press releases. Their intended audiences are not discerning enough to know the difference or care, and evidently, they are not discerning enough to make wise investments given Tesla's comical market cap in comparison to the rest of the industry. This "news" makes it sound like Tesla is doing something big and important, so these "news" blogs just repeat it without looking into it in the slightest. I'm willing to bet that if you sent one of these blogs a convincing enough press release about anything that makes Telsa look good, they would publish something about it within a day.
bootloop 4y ago
Might be a setup for a financial scam within China (so they can point to western sources to support their claim). So it doesn't need to convince us in the west as long as somebody who doesn't speak English well believes it there.
- winReInstall 4y ago
  Also need to hire a drunk, old ex-pat and put him in a suit.
LightG 4y ago
sect2k 4y ago
If, after looking at the Annex website, it takes you longer than 10 seconds to figure out it's a scam, I have some investment opportunities for you. On a serious note, take a look at the CPU picture on the front page, it' clearly a photoshopped Ryzen 5 (AM4 is visible in the top right). The text on the CPU is also hilarious; CPU: single node with 128 core, 256 CPUs and 512 GB of memory. It' also diffused in GArmany, not to be confused with GErmany. So yeah, a 100% scam, contact me about those investment opportunities if still in doubt about this one.
JacobSeated 4y ago
The Zurich Fund website is hosted on godaddy, which is a big warning sign in itself. It's a Wordpress site if you try /wp-admin, unfortunately it has directory listing turned off on /wp-uploads and similar. Very few professional tech companies would ever host on godaddy. They might self-host, use AWS, azure, google, and similar. But never go with shared hosting!

85 points by imartin2k 4y ago

aeternum 4y ago

Perhaps the news companies attempting to show that the new citizen journalists also do not check their sources?

JPLeRouzic 4y ago

Xylakant 4y ago
The article continues to say that Zurichfund itself is fake, so you can’t take their website as source of truth. You’d first need to establish that Zurich Fund exists.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  The Zurich Fund website's contents appears to be largely copy-pasted from Goldman Sachs. Brazil Sao Paulo - Zurich Fund Management Brasil Ltda. Rua Leopoldo Couto Magalhães Junior 702, 16 andar Itaim Bibi 04542-000 São Paulo-SP http://zurichfund.com/locations/ http://zurichfund.com/locations/ Brazil Sao Paulo - Goldman Sachs Asset Management Brasil Ltda. Rua Leopoldo Couto Magalhães Junior 700, 16 andar Itaim Bibi 04542-000 São Paulo-SP https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/locations.html https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/locations.html Their supposed headquarters of "Bahnhofstrasse 55, Zurich" doesn't even exist (there is a 53/55 though), and the search and replace on the Chairman's Letter missed Blackstone's ticker (BX) and their BCRED fund (bcred.com). http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/ http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    According to the article, they also use stock photos for their staff, which would be a huge red flag.
ncallaway 4y ago
That specific website and press release are mentioned in the article: > Zurich Fund also appears to be a completely made-up company. The website has the same design as Annex’s, and it is also full of vague and generic information. Its “our people” page actually profiles two executives, but they are both made up with stock images for their profiles: > I couldn’t find anyone matching those names and profiles. Like Annex, the only reference that I could find about the Zurich Fund is a press release about it buying Annex in June. No other information about the company is available nor does anyone claim to be working for the company. So linking to that press release doesn’t seem to contradict the claims from the article. Have you found any other sources referring to the acquisition, or indicating that the executive on the About Us page of Zurich Fund existing? I’m open to the idea that the authors claim is incorrect, but this link at least seems to support rather than refute the claims made by Elektrek
captn3m0 4y ago
The Zurichfund website is hosted on GoDaddy, but more surprisingly - the MX records point to qq.com. Couldn't find any evidence for the companies listed on opencorporates.com. Lots of claims on [1] are also clearly fake: > Zurich Fund’s market capitalization has grown to $90 billion, making our firm the 92nd largest U.S public company. I couldn't find a single mention as ZurichFund being an investory in many of the companies listed: Ancestry, HealthEdge, 21Vianet, ClearGen, Altus Power, DCI, Kronos and Ultimate Software, Bridger Aerospace. They claim a $100M investment in TWTR in 2017, so someone could check that perhaps?[2] [1]: http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/ http://zurichfund.com/2022/01/chairmans-letter-2021/ [2]: http://zurichfund.com/private-equity/#portfolio http://zurichfund.com/private-equity/#portfolio
- SargeDebian 4y ago
  The internet archive has first indexed their site in 2021, so if they existed in 2017, that would be interesting. Here's the Yandex (weirdly the best results) search for images similar to their Sr Managing Director: https://yandex.com/images/search?source=collections&rpt=imageview&url=https%3A%2F%2Favatars.mds.yandex.net%2Fget-images-cbir%2F905027%2F7HR9OcF-2f6B5iDZth5ETg3699%2Forig&cbir_id=905027%2F7HR9OcF-2f6B5iDZth5ETg3699 https://yandex.com/images/search?source=collections&rpt=imag...

choeger 4y ago

Money laundering? Intelligence front? Maybe someone tried to create a legend and Tesla fans noticed it too early? Another option: Say you want to fake your way into C-level positions. Is it out of the question that you could invest a couple of years into creating a fake success career by making up such firms and then mention them in your CV?

actionfromafar 4y ago
Yes, but "Werner-von-Volkswagen-Strasse". On the other hand, who knows. Stupider things have worked, many times before.

sva_ 4y ago

> Werner-von-Volkswagen-Strasse Seems legit

matzab 4y ago
It's obviously right next to Klaus-von-Bayerische-Motorenwerke-Straße. They didn't even try to seem legit, did they?
- rob74 4y ago
  ...at the intersection with Adalbert-Audi-Ring.
- antonvs 4y ago
  Could be the old scammer tactic of screening out skeptics early.
SargeDebian 4y ago
There are multiple streets named after Werner von Braun and Werner von Siemens, so why not just take another well known German brand as your fake company’s fake address?
- sva_ 4y ago
  It makes me feel like this isn't trying to fool westerners, but rather other asians/Chinese.
- xg15 4y ago
  Bit disappointed their US headquarters weren't at General Edison Motors Plaza.
- rob74 4y ago
  Yeah that's just bad luck - most German companies (Siemens, Bosch, Opel, Thyssen-Krupp, Daimler etc. etc.) are named after people, but they picked Volkswagen, one of the few that isn't...
netsharc 4y ago

michelb 4y ago

It may not be the 'Tesla' we know. "Tesla Motors Limited" holds 5% of Annex, but the official subsidiaries of Tesla Inc. in China are named 'Tesla', not "Tesla Motors Limited". There a ton of companies named 'Tesla' in China.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

I was assuming this would be a pump-and-dump scheme. What's even the point if there's not a penny stock with that name?

heavyset_go 4y ago
They were pumping TSLA.

maxbond 4y ago

My suspicion would be that this was a legend to back a face to face scam, perhaps seeking investment in the fictional company so that they can pursue this venture.

mupuff1234 4y ago

"Tesla blogs" make it sound like those are official company blogs but they're just a bunch of fan sites.

mcv 4y ago
This is a very important distinction to make. "Tesla fan blogs" would be a better description than "Tesla blogs".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
7e 4y ago
If they were official, it would read “Tesla’s blogs.”
- prds_lost 4y ago
  To be fair, Tesla's version of official is a tweet from the Chief Twit.
dang 4y ago
Ok, we've put fan sites up there. Thanks!

heavyset_go 4y ago

It's because there's a weird cottage industry that has sprung up to write fluff about Tesla and launder their press releases. Their intended audiences are not discerning enough to know the difference or care, and evidently, they are not discerning enough to make wise investments given Tesla's comical market cap in comparison to the rest of the industry. This "news" makes it sound like Tesla is doing something big and important, so these "news" blogs just repeat it without looking into it in the slightest. I'm willing to bet that if you sent one of these blogs a convincing enough press release about anything that makes Telsa look good, they would publish something about it within a day.

bootloop 4y ago

Might be a setup for a financial scam within China (so they can point to western sources to support their claim). So it doesn't need to convince us in the west as long as somebody who doesn't speak English well believes it there.

winReInstall 4y ago
Also need to hire a drunk, old ex-pat and put him in a suit.

LightG 4y ago

sect2k 4y ago

If, after looking at the Annex website, it takes you longer than 10 seconds to figure out it's a scam, I have some investment opportunities for you. On a serious note, take a look at the CPU picture on the front page, it' clearly a photoshopped Ryzen 5 (AM4 is visible in the top right). The text on the CPU is also hilarious; CPU: single node with 128 core, 256 CPUs and 512 GB of memory. It' also diffused in GArmany, not to be confused with GErmany. So yeah, a 100% scam, contact me about those investment opportunities if still in doubt about this one.

JacobSeated 4y ago

The Zurich Fund website is hosted on godaddy, which is a big warning sign in itself. It's a Wordpress site if you try /wp-admin, unfortunately it has directory listing turned off on /wp-uploads and similar. Very few professional tech companies would ever host on godaddy. They might self-host, use AWS, azure, google, and similar. But never go with shared hosting!