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.