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There is an entire Wikipedia article about Musk's (mostly) failed predictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_b
by mr_mitm 10mo ago
There is an entire Wikipedia article about Musk's (mostly) failed predictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
- 1121redblackgo 10mo agoAt what point is it fair to call the list something other than ‘predictions’
- mr_mitm 10mo agoAccording to the article, a court would call this "corporate puffery", but to me it's nothing but lies and grifting.
- roryirvine 10mo agoTo be "mere puff", the claim needs to be so obviously untrue that no reasonable bystander would suppose it to be meant literally. But Musk often acts as if he does actually intend to be taken seriously. In the case of the current story, consider the marketing resources Tesla have poured into their previous "Battery Day" events and look at the press reaction; it's clear that at least some people believed that the claims stacked up. A quick search of the hn archives for "4680" shows a similar picture. Yes, there were always some sceptical voices, but they were often shouted down as being from people motivated by an anti-Elon grudge. Nevertheless, the sentiment tended to be overwhelmingly positive with many posters actively reinforcing the hype. Now, whether or not a self-selecting sample of hn posters can be seen as "reasonable bystanders" is certainly debatable - but it does seem that we're getting close to the point where Musk is going to have to start branding those who believe him as being exceptionally gullible in order to escape a charge of misleading advertising.
- vrosas 10mo agos/Predictions/Ketamine-and-adderall-fueled ramblings
- spwa4 10mo agoI think they mean grift or even fraud, since they were definitely meant to attract investment. Now excuse me while I go check on where my 2016 full-self-driving Tesla car. It was supposed to pick me up 9 years ago, something must have happened.
- hshdhdhj4444 10mo agoI still don’t understand how they haven’t been sued for the hundreds of millions they took as a deposit for a new Roadster…8 years ago!
- woleium 10mo agoWell the government was in the process of doing so, but somehow he seems to have doge’d it.
- andsoitis 10mo ago> I still don’t understand how they haven’t been sued for the hundreds of millions they took as a deposit for a new Roadster…8 years ago! Because you can cancel your reservation and get your deposited refunded. See terms at Tesla.com
- LtdJorge 10mo agoSame site as the OP has an article stating Tesla makes it difficult, and if you put 50k in 8 years ago and obtain 50k now, I think you lost a lot of money. I have no opinion on the process itself though, I don’t know enough about Tesla as I’m only interested in the engineering, just wanted to point out the inflation losses.
- locknitpicker 10mo ago> if you put 50k in 8 years ago and obtain 50k now, I think you lost a lot of money. This is a textbook sunk cost fallacy.
- mmmm2 10mo agoPump and dump scheme?
- eru 10mo agoWhat evidence is there for the 'dump' part? Mr Musk is a strange fellow indeed, but he's not guilty of all the vices and sins. Just plenty enough of them.
- mannykannot 10mo agoThat’s a fair point, but a combination of “fake it ‘til you make it” together with extracting massive “compensation” before you actually make it amounts to pretty much the same thing.
- eru 10mo agoHow is it the 'same thing'? Especially if he gets his comp largely in the same supposedly overvalued stock?
- _heimdall 10mo agoHow is that different from any other CEO, especially of publicly traded companies? CEOs are constantly making claims and promises that are aspirational at best, their compensation isn't held until all promises are reached.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- nurettin 10mo agohttps://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/05/31/tesla-investor-accuses-elon-musk-of-75-billion-of-insider-trades/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/05/31/tes... > Musk sold 19.5 million Tesla shares worth about $3.95 billion in November 2022 I mean sure it is his to sell, but how is that different?
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- rchaud 10mo ago"Tech Optimism"
- cosmicgadget 10mo ago"Forward-looking statements" aka legal stock pumping. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward-looking_statement)
- adonovan 10mo agoPredicting is easy. Predicting correctly less so.
- Jare 10mo agoWhen you are making predictions about what you are going to do, "correctly" is spelled "honestly".
- yibg 10mo agoI guess when people stop believing them. Until then, they're words from a visionary that's building the future, who can get some things wrong / be over zealous etc. When people stop believing him, they become lies.
- ChrisGreenHeur 10mo agoA statement is a lie if the person saying it knows it to be false. Not if the person hearing it disbelieves it.
- sdoering 10mo agoImagine me standing next to the fence of the White House, calling the Meta Office. "I am calling from the White House", while technically true would be a lie, as my intent would be to make the other person believe something that isn't true, that I would be calling in some kind of official role. So the statement does not necessarily be false to be a lie - if the intent is to deceive.
- epolanski 10mo agoThose are borderline lies that deceived both customers and investors.
- spiderfarmer 10mo agoPut that on your resumé and you'll easily land a cushy job in Washington.
- locknitpicker 10mo ago> Put that on your resumé and you'll easily land a cushy job in Washington. I think you have it backwards. The entire tech bro scene reeks of fraud schemes, and the most successful ones seem to be pulled into all kinds of government schemes as well.
- nkrisc 10mo agoAfter the first few some responsibility begins shifting to those still believing him.
- b00ty4breakfast 10mo agoInvestors know what's up. They want number to go up, therefore they "believe" him and the number goes up. The map precedes the territory
- toxik 10mo agoActually a very interesting article! Didn't know he'd been selling this lie for so long.
- qoez 10mo agoThe best counter argument to that is that he did manage to predict/make into reality electric vehicles (when going into that industry was crazy) and reusable rockets. If someone makes a thousand moonshot attempts but still succeeds with two that's impressive.
- LunaSea 10mo agoElectric vehicles were the first types of cars invented. Musk also bought into Tesla. So its not like he invented some kind of alien technology. It was always about having good enough marketing to permit 10 years of R&D to make the car actually attractive.
- kubb 10mo agoThey were also mass produced before Tesla.
- SR2Z 10mo agoNobody with any knowledge at all is claiming that Elon Musk invented electric cars. The simple truth is that he made electric cars viable competitors to gas-powered cars. His genius is not that he invented them, it's that he profitably manufactured decently reliable cars for a price that lots of people found attractive. You can try and dismiss it as "marketing," but things like the Gigapress and FSD/Autopilot are impressive technical achievements in their own right. Even more impressive is that he built up a new car company that didn't fold and has had the best selling car in the US for significant chunks of time. I don't like the guy, I think that FSD is dangerous, and I will never buy a Tesla for as long as he's in charge, but it's crazy that so many people feel the need to discredit his achievements. Sure, he benefited from selling carbon credits and EV subsidies, but if it were such an easy thing to do why did it take so long for anyone else to sell a good EV?
- Animats 10mo agoMusk's behaviors should be separated into before drugs and after drugs. Since the day he smoked pot on camera, it's been all downhill.
- silisili 10mo agoI had no idea this existed, that's pretty damning. The question - is Musk lying on purpose, or is this more 90-90 rule where he made (obviously wrong) assumptions based on current progress?
- janalsncm 10mo agoThe latter implies there is any progress to project out from.
- selkin 10mo agoIf he himself believes he can achieve his off-the-cuff deadlines or not doesn't matter for the rest of us: he already proven himself to be a fabulist, and after so many failed predictions, should know better than to air them in public, especially as he must be acutely aware that making such claims inflates his and his companies' net worth, and hence has legal implications. Only he cares not about those, as none of his past misdeeds had any serious consequences to himself.
- specialp 10mo agoSomehow his company is worth ~1.6 trillion dollars, with most of that valuation being confidence in his predictions. He is predicting humanoid useful robots soon. Tesla's valuation defies reason
- marze 10mo ago"Tesla, where we make the impossible late"
- vishnugupta 10mo agoIt’d be neat to have a dedicated site similar to killed by google.
- 7e 10mo agoSee also elonmusk.today
- ulfw 10mo ago'failed predictions' I am an old man. In my youth we called this lies. Or investor deception. Some would even go as far as calling what he claims fraud but hey...
- hdgvhicv 10mo agoWhen the weather forecast said it would rain on Friday and it didn’t was that also called a lie?
- Earw0rm 10mo agoWeather forecasts are a best-effort. CEOs should have a reasonable grasp of what's possible for their team on a given short/medium timeline. It won't be perfect but should be ballpark. Elon and those like him make these statements with no reference to realistic project delivery timelines, business capacity or anything else - despite having all of that information readily available. That's not a best guess, it's making shit up.
- IndrekR 10mo agoIf the input to the weather forecast is mostly /dev/random, then yes, that is called a lie. There is a very big difference between modelling chaotic systems and providing random noise.
- codersfocus 10mo agoAh yes, managing people, science, and research and development are well known to be very predictable and stable, easily modeled even by a teenager.
- szszrk 10mo agoNeat. It's a bummer though that it's limited to Telsa. Would love to see a fuller one of his all bold statements about robotics, tunnel transportation, space travel, and AI.
- bilekas 10mo agoThis one was from a couple years back. The list could probably double with DOGE alone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk...
- _heimdall 10mo agoIts hard to hold his DOGE claims against him. He ultimately didn't have control there and it sure seems like he was either lied to about what he was going to be allowed to do or had the rug pulled out from under him.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- _heimdall 10mo agoFor the silent down votes, I'd be curious how you can hold claims Elon made regarding what DOGE would get done against him. I don't agree with how they went about trying to cut government spending, but that's beside the point. When he wasn't in control and ultimately got stonewalled and removed as soon as he ran through the initial hype of the project, how is it his fault the claims failed? Do you disagree that the government has a similar amount of waste and spending that could be cut?
- oblio 10mo agoGovernment spending and waste turns out to be much, much harder than people predict because... drumroll... people rely on those expenses for things which are very important to them. Such as safety when traveling abroad, roads, hospitals, etc. And regarding Elon's claims? Is he a toddler or a grown man? If I claim to control the tides and fail, is it not a failure or a lie on my part when I can't control them?
- haritha-j 10mo agoThe only one that actually came true out of the long list was a 'prediction' he made about something happening in the same month.
- LightBug1 10mo agoThat looks like it would make the basis of a nice Tesla class action law suit!
- onion2k 10mo ago"Predictions" feels like the wrong word for what a CEO is saying his company is intending to deliver.