They are likely referring to Elon’s 2018 promise that people that bought Teslas could make money while they slept because people could rent their Tesla from an app and the car would return to the users driveway by the morning.

Sure but he didn't say it would happen for certain by a certain day. If he did, even then, it wouldn't be fraud, it would just be a company not living up to what they promised. Which is nothing new, nor is it fraud.

Fraud would be someone intentionally deceiving you, which in this case would be nearly impossible to prove, hence not fraud.

But he did say that [0] and he does intentionally deceive customes. One of the key reasons why it doesn't constitute as fraud is his abundant use of "I'm confident that ____" (and similar) he uses when stating these ludicrous things. It is deceptive and it is amoral but legally it is not fraud since those are opinions and not stated as facts.

[0] Article summarizing keynote (Apr. 2019) - https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-autonomous-driving-lev...

I think that's giving Elon Musk too much credit.

I think Elon says things fully expecting them to become true.

Whenever I hear him say "I'm confident that X will happen by Y", I mentally add "provided that every single engineer at [one of his companies] puts in 20 hour days for 2 years and manages to solve a mountain of problems that have never been solved before."

Sometimes it works, which unfortunately encourages the behavior.

> I think Elon says things fully expecting them to become true.

I thought that of him years ago, but it's become really clear to me since then that he just lies.

But, practically speaking, that distinction doesn't matter much. Either way, it means you can't believe anything he says just because he says it.

The best liars believe their own lies.

I fully expect he does too. A bit like Steve Jobs' reality distortion field.

> I'm confident that

So not a fraudster, just a confidence man… a conman.

Saying he's confident it would happen is not saying that it will happen for certain. So no he didn't say that.

A company not living up to what it promised when it is telling you to buy the product on the basis of that promise meets the first condition of fraud. It absolutely can be fraud.

The only question is whether the company or company representative making the claim knew what they were saying was untrue.

Based on stuff Elon said in the same presentation as being true as of the day he made the presentation actually being false, I suspect he was indeed aware that he was just lying, but it’s hard to prove in a court of law, and Tesla is a huge company with an extraordinarily active legal department, so it’s unlikely a customer would take him to court.

> Fraud would be someone intentionally deceiving you, which in this case would be nearly impossible to prove, hence not fraud.

This feels like when my kid tells me, "I did clean my room, see, I picked up two things. TECHNICALLY I CLEANED."

That's pretty much it. Technically, the statement is mostly accurate.

Adults that do this are called shysty assholes, and commonly, they sell cars. lol

This stuff just writes itself..

If they knew they were unlikely to be able to live up to the promises when the promises were made, then that is unambiguously fraud.

> Fraud would be someone intentionally deceiving you, which in this case would be nearly impossible to prove, hence not fraud.

Being difficult to prove the case in court doesn't mean an act isn't fraud. It just means the fraud is difficult to prove in court.

This is just the dumbest idea I've heard.

On paper, it sounds great, but it seems to miss the context of humans. Humans are a garbage species. Within a week, that Tesla would be trashed.

Hire cars (backed by credit card) don't seem to fare sooo bad. Although I'd hate to argue the toss over any scratches i certainly didn't make, it must have been the last renter. Legal minefield?

Legal minefield and more, imo.

It's a neat idea, but the world isn't the pollyanna paradise required for this to work.

Oh great, so they were advertised a product description and the fine print waived the entire product description and tossed out every verbal promise. In what universe is that anything other than intentional, bad faith deception? If somebody sold you a cereal box and then only gave you a empty box, would you also go: "Aw shucks, I guess the seller did not intend to deceive me, it was my fault for not reading the fine print."

It is absurd to protect statements that are "technically true, but substantially false" that have been carefully crafted and focus grouped to intentionally imply something other than what they know to be the truth. Anything less than statements which are "substantially true" that have been intentionally crafted to avoid incorrect interpretations should be, and colloquially is, viewed as fraud.

It is utterly ridiculous that the richest person in the world and the largest car company in the world are held to the moral standards of a monkey's paw.