Tesla Is Suing An Oil-Company Executive For Impersonating Elon Musk (businessinsider.com) 170
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: Tesla is suing an oil executive under suspicion of impersonating Elon Musk to dig up confidential financial information from the company, Forbes reported on Wednesday. The lawsuit, reportedly filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, claimed that Todd Katz, the chief financial officer for Quest Integrity Group, emailed Tesla's chief financial officer using a similar email address as Musk's looking to gain information that wasn't disclosed in an earnings call with investors. Quest Integrity Group has partnerships with BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil, the Forbes report said. According to the lawsuit, Katz used "elontesla@yahoo.com" to send an email to Tesla CFO Jason Wheeler asking about the company's sales and financial projections. The email named in the suit reads: "why you so cautious w Q3/4 gm guidance on call? also what are your thoughts on disclosing M3 res#? Pros/cons from ir pov? what is your best guess as to where we actually come in on q3/4 deliverables. honest guess? no bs. thx 4 hard work prepping 4 today. em." Tesla is seeking "undisclosed financial compensation," as well as compensation for the cost of the investigation and legal fees, according to Forbes.
Why do names reflect the opposite so often? (Score:5, Insightful)
When people proclaim their good qualities so publicly, it's because they want to con you.
Re:Why do names reflect the opposite so often? (Score:5, Funny)
The leader of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea disagrees with you.
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*wins thread*
Re:Why do names reflect the opposite so often? (Score:4, Insightful)
And so do the United States of America.
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And so do the United States of America.
Yeah, Florida and Texas can fuck right off.
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Does it really reflect the opposite? (Score:3)
I hae to assume that is short for "Quest for Integrity Group".
Still looking since 1994!
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It's an old rule of marketing. An adjective either very accurately describes the product or is the complete opposite, nothing in between.
Say for example, if you have a cereal called Nature's Best. It either is an organic tree-hugging, all vegan, hemp-tshirt inspired cereal or is the worst junk full of sugar and additives.
The explanation is straightforward, either you are an honest person and describe your product accurately or you are a crook, in which case you maximize your lie since it makes business sens
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In your particular example you exhibit a problem with this simplistic rule:
Say for example, if you have a cereal called Nature's Best.
The problem here is that different people will consider different qualities to be "best" even in the context of a breakfast cereal.
E.g.: "How much honey should it contain?" My answer would be none, but I know people who really believe that it should have enough to make it sticky...and they aren't all kids.
Eg.: "Should it contain ground hemp?" I think most people would say n
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Quest Integrity Group
When people proclaim their good qualities so publicly, it's because they want to con you.
Apparently their name refers to the physical integrity of oil pipeline hardware, and not the character of their employees.
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Exactly this. If they put it in their company or product's name, you can be quite sure that it's lacking in the company or product.
Shows the lengths.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is standard practice nowadays. There are AstroTurfing campaigns and attacks like this going on all the time these days. There is no such thing as playing fair and letting the market decide. Ever since Tesla started plans to produce a mass consumer electric vehicle that's not handicapped and a piece of shit the oil industry has been working against them. This is why every single Model S crash is a massive public affair with news stories all over the wire. Oil companies are funding these types of articles and paying journalists to write them, probably in some cases writing them for them.
I'm glad Musk pursued the investigation and determined the person that made the call so they can get them on the stand. Expect nothing less at this point than the astroturf nonprofit that employs the guy to try to keep him from talking to anyone and when he does they will throw him under the bus and ruin his career to make it look like "one bad apple".
Like I said, standard practice these days. You can't really believe anything you see these days because of how corrupt journalism is, and the internet has only made it worse.
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Its not so much that they are paying journalists off, the rots further up the corporate chain with editors and bureau chiefs. And you'll rarely see the direct hand of the oil industry but rather the think tanks they hire.. These guys will wine and dine the editors, and invite them out on yachts and the like , while whispering conspiracy theories about scientists being in cohorts with the reds or whatever nonsense suits the agenda of the minute. Tesla and Elon Musks companies in general represents an existen
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>Its not so much that they are paying journalists off, the rots further up the corporate chain with editors and bureau chiefs
Don't forget owners. Remember a few months ago when a bunch of editors at Breitbart resigned in protest because, they claimed, Trump was paying the owners to give him positive coverage ?
And that's breitbat, playground for the alt-right [read: neo-NAZI skinheads without charisma] - hardly a symbol of impartial, honest journalism to begin with and their editors hardly averse to a sig
Re:Shows the lengths.... (Score:5, Informative)
>while whispering conspiracy theories about scientists being in cohorts with the reds
That one's been happening for ages. Ayn Rand fervently believed, and publicly claimed, that all research indicating a link between smoking and lung cancer was a communist plot. She died of smoking-induced lung-cancer and maintained her refusal to accept the science even on her deathbed.
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The fact that she had terminal lung cancer had *nothing* to do with her heart failing right ? Now that's some serious reaching there...
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When a person with terminal lung cancer in the final stages dies of heart failure - only an idiot thinks it's NOT the cancer that killed her.
By that same reasoning - EVERYBODY dies of heart failure except the ones who take a bullet to the brain, in just about every other case the heart goes before the brain does (which is the official definition of dead).
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Besides which - the attempt to 'dispell the myth' is just a typircal randroid attempt to divert the issue. So it becomes about a coroner's report instead of the part that is utterly true and actually important: that she claimed the link between smoking and lung cancer was a communist conspiracy. You don't want to talk about that part because it's
1) true
2) ridiculous
3) obviously ridiculous
And when you deal with those you have to admit that EVERYTHING she said meets was obviously ridiculous.
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Think for a second. Lung cancer progressively impacts your ability to breath meaning you get less and less oxygen meaning your heart has to work harder and harder moving blood around faster to keep supplying oxygen to your organs.
It's not even controversial that lung cancer patients often die of heart disease by wearing their hearts out before the lung cancer itself can kill them, it's a common fact. When the lung cancer is from smoking - which also can contribute to heart failure (though this was not widel
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They don't use the term "reds" anymore, that's 1950s-1980s dated. The correct usage today is "racist".
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People dying while using the Tesla Autopilot is certainly bad publicity.
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fortunately nobody that matters has died from it. only incredibly stupid people that for some reason was making a large amount of money.
Every single death was 100% moron level on the drivers part. as in this person should not be allowed to use a fork at dinner level.
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People die every day by not paying attention in their cars.
Tesla tells you every day to pay attention. If you don't, you could die.
Some people can't follow simple directions.
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I don't think a conspiracy is needed. It's unusual and exciting news on a slow news day, that's all that it takes.
Re: Shows the lengths.... (Score:2)
The person who coined that lie was probably a VP at a Madison Avenue PR firm.
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Actually I believe he was a CEO of a manufacturing company...let me check. OK, I was probably wrong: ... http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean... [phrases.org.uk]
'There's no such thing as bad publicity' is often associated with Phineas T. Barnum, the 19th century American showman and circus owner. Barnum was a
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I don't have sources either, but there have been multiple stories in the past with multiple groups manipulating the press to the point of writing the stories that they print (often with minor changes). OTOH, bribery, as such, is rarely shown. It doesn't seem to be needed when a nicely written article suffices.
Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Is Apple going to sue Elon Musk for impersonating Steve Jobs?
Re:Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll leave it the reader to decide which is cooler.
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I know you're only trying to be funny but Elon builds fast cars and rockets, while Steve built a telephone that was slightly better than the existing telephones of the day (until the competition caught up and made even better telephones).
I'll leave it the reader to decide which is cooler.
I'm no Apple fan, but the iPhone was far beyond the other phones of its day (the Blackberry and Treo were state of the art at the time), the first Android wasn't released until a year later and was not nearly as usable. Nokia's Symbian line and Psion had some good phones at the time, but lacked the broad appeal of the iPhone (and a few years later, the broad appeal of Android)
While the iPhone may have lost the edge that make it better than all competitors, when it launched it was much more than "slightly be
Re:Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe to some people, but to me the first iPhone was even inferior to even the first Windows Mobile phone I have bought in 2002 and lightyears behind my then current HTC universal. I mean, ridiculously low display resolution, lack of such basic concepts like running third party applications, copy&paste or multitasking. IPhone has been a feature phone with a touch screen at the release time, not a smartphone.
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You are Hilarious. I carried one of those abominations.
Now my Palm Treo, THAT utterly kicked the ass of everything from Apple or the crap that ran Windows CE.
The problem with it was it required someone with an IQ over 100 to run it. Which mean the majority of the population found it frustrating to use.
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I owned basically every HTC device starting with Wallaby and finishing with HD2 and I really liked them. My last Palm was Palm III, so I can't really comment on Treo, but I wasn't impressed with PalmOS in the 1990ies.
Re:Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
far beyond? it was at least two years behind.
christmas of 2005 i got an htc wizard
it was incomparably better than the iphone
and it came about two years earlier
Re:Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no Apple fan, but the iPhone was far beyond the other phones of its day (the Blackberry and Treo were state of the art at the time)
Seriously? Aren't you forgetting about a Finnish company that completely dominated the smartphone scene at the time?
The first iPhone was a very slick feature phone, but it was by no means a smartphone. It did not have apps and it lacked a lot of functionality that was common even in cheap phones at the time. Moreover, it was the first phone ever to be tied to one specific mobile network. In the beginning, it was impossible to buy it without an extremely expensive bundled subscription to one particular network. There was really no reason to want it. However, the excellent marketing, the years of rumours and secrecy and the way the media treated Jobs and Apple at the time made it popular. It is a marketing success story, but there is nothing particularly good about the product as such. It did popularise the touch screen, however.
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Re: Apple (Score:2)
Treo has copy/paste long before due to its palm pedigree
Re:Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Way to rewrite history there, pal. It's not like the only thing Jobs did was build a better phone. He also literally invented the first portable music player in history, and then re-invented it (again). In fact, I distinctly remember an event when he revealed the newest all-new re-invented portable music player, and it was impossibly small, it said so right there in the marketing literature. Impossibly small, but he built it anyway. He builds things that are literally impossible to build. Call me when Elon comes out with an impossibly small car or rocket and then we can compare him to Jobs.
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Thanks. I enjoyed that immensely. :)
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Holy hell I actually looked up the ad [youtube.com]. There's one for the time capsule.
Little known fact: those are 10-foot tall animatronic hands, because it's not possible to build something that small which holds a whopping 1,000 songs.
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No. No. No. No. Steve Jobs never ever invented a product. He pushed others to invent products, he sold products, he evangelized product. He was important, he rescued Apple from bankruptcy, but he was not a product designer. He was a salesman and an art critic (in the wider sense of art). He demanded excellence, and often got it.
Steve Jobs was quite important, but he wasn't the company.
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Re: Apple (Score:2)
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Pretty toy versus space travel. Yeah, I'll take Musk for the win on this.
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To be fair, NASA has been moving backwards in space travel technology since 1972.
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**First stage** of an orbital launch vehicle and space shuttle are not cognates.
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Jobs never built a thing in his life. He just got really, really good at a certain kind of marketing - no not marketing to the public (he had people for that) - marketing himself to engineers and designers as a visionary boss who will let you create great things.
Which put him in a position to get rich off of other people's groundbreaking work - with never a reward for those who did the breaking of the ground. That pattern goes all the way back to when he first met his 'friend' Steve Wozniak.
Woz at least rec
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also got good at FUCKING the people that built the stuff. he fucked over Woz, the man that actually made apple what it is, he fucked over everyone that did not just nod and say yes-sir.
He may have went down the right paths, but he stepped on a lot of people's faces while wearing soccer cleats to get there.
But then all the "tech giants" were raging assholes that fucked over the people that did the real work to get there. Gates was notorious for it.
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Yep, I never suggested he was particularly unique for that. Just that this is, indeed, who he was.
Generally - the people who actually create things are almost never the people who get rich from them. That's at least in part because those people care about creating something great, not about getting rich. It's practically a job requirement - you can't care about the greatness of the creation AND about the profitability of the company since the two goals will create vastly conflicting requirements.
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I know you're only trying to be funny but Elon builds fast cars and rockets, while Steve built a telephone that was slightly better than the existing telephones of the day (until the competition caught up and made even better telephones). I'll leave it the reader to decide which is cooler.
I'm not a fan of Jobs, and I'm certainly not an iPhone fanboy, but GTFO, the first iPhone was leaps and bounds better than anything available at the time. It was a paradigm shift in both mobile phone and personal computing technologies.
General dislike for someone or something should not preclude us from being objective.
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I'm no fan of Elon either, but I think most people would think cars and rockets are cooler than phones and laptops
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We've already had this argument a million times in here. The point is do you prefer a slightly better phone or and the fastest car in the world? Or a rocket? I'm no fan of Elon either, but I think most people would think cars and rockets are cooler than phones and laptops
You are changing the goalposts. I'm not talking about comparing cars and rockets or whether the later is way cooler than the former (what a stupid strawman.) I'm talking about (and taking you to task) this which you wrote:
while Steve built a telephone that was slightly better than the existing telephones of the day
That's bullshit no matter how you cut it. Rockets cooler than phones? Of course! The first iPhone being just slightly better than the phones of the time? Utter garbage and disingenuous history revisionism.
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You are changing the goalposts... That's bullshit no matter how you cut it... The first iPhone being just slightly better than the phones of the time? Utter garbage and disingenuous history revisionism.
Fuck off no-one cares about these tired iPhone arguments anymore. It's just a phone, get over it.
The thread is about whether Elon is a copy of Steve, or a better version altogether. I think he's much better since the stuff he is doing is much cooler.
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You are changing the goalposts... That's bullshit no matter how you cut it... The first iPhone being just slightly better than the phones of the time? Utter garbage and disingenuous history revisionism.
Fuck off no-one cares about these tired iPhone arguments anymore. It's just a phone, get over it.
You care enough to argue back, don't you? We are not arguing about iPhones (that's you again moving the goalposts). We are arguing about your technologically inaccurate statements. You don't like being called on inaccurate statements? Then motherfuckingduh don't make inaccurate statements. Or better yet, let it go (since you claim no one cares about these arguments anymore.)
The thread is about whether Elon is a copy of Steve, or a better version altogether.
Yes, then stick to that theme and don't post inaccurate shit like saying the first iPhone was just *slightly* better than the technology available at the time (which is inaccurate and easy to disprove by just pulling up the specs of every single major phone at the time.)
I think he's much better since the stuff he is doing is much cooler.
No one said otherwise. Feel free to hump that strawman, just don't complain when you get blisters.
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Everyone stands on the shoulders of giants, including Elon. I'll leave you to ponder.
True. He stepped on a lot of people.
Obviously a shitty email (Score:4, Insightful)
If I got an email with such shit, I would reply with a demand to try again with correct spelling and grammar. And of course I would expect this to be some kind of attack, and report it to others in my company.
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and I would demand that the person use their corporate account, not some yahoo/gmail/hotmail/whatever address that happens to match spelling on the user part ...
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If I got an email with such shit, I would reply...
The only correct response to spam is ignore and delete. Any other response only gives more power to the spammer.
Re:Obviously a shitty email (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently the correct response is to trace and sue. I would suggest that response gives even less power to the spammer.
It's Amazing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Send a business email from a YAHOO email account?
Send an email that looks like a 16 year old girl's text to her BFF?
I would have thought that a big company like Tesla would have its own internal email server, and I also would have thought that there would be some sort of decorum in the workplace.
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I would print out the e-mail, annotate with a red pen and write F- with a frowny face at the top. Then scan it and send it back with a copy to his parents.
It continued... (Score:3, Funny)
Strange Wording (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that really how Elon Musk writes emails?
Either that guy is copying actual internal emails sent by Musk or he's the most incompetent spear phisher ever.
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Re:Strange Wording (Score:5, Funny)
Is that really how Elon Musk writes emails?
Elon Musk doesn't even tweet like that. This is barely a step above:
Plz I can haz corporate secretz
kthxbye.
Re:Strange Wording (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure it's a step ABOVE ? I think it's actually a step BELOW.
With that one, chances are it would get spam flagged and forgotten, with the one he DID send it got traced and he is now being sued. Arguably a worse outcome.
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It looks more like a trolling not phishing. Unless E.M. really writes emails like 16 year old girl :/
The other question is... (Score:2)
Is Jason Wheeler going to get his ass fired and become *FORMER* CFO?
Impersonation Seems Unlikely (Score:2)
I wonder what the lawsuit is actually for. I have a hard time believing Tesla could sue for someone impersonating Elon, wouldn't he himself need to do it? Perhaps attempted theft of trade secrets?
One wonders what this clown would have done with the information, had he been successful and used it for financial gain then I assume he could have run into legal problems with the SEC if caught.
Re:Impersonation Seems Unlikely (Score:4, Informative)
From the complaint, the lawsuit is actually for:
1. Violation of California Penal Code 528.5 (which seems to allow any person damaged by impersonation to sue, not just the one impersonated).
2. Unlawful, deceptive, and unfair business acts and practices in violation of California Business & Professions Code 17200.
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Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means
Why oh why does this specifically call out electronic means? Why isn't there a single statute which would also cover writing letters, etc. why do they need different handling?
So wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Where's the relevance here ?
The two cases literally have nothing in common.
The first is a criminal case. The second a civil case. That is: completely different standards of evidence and procedures.
The first is in federal court under federal law.
The second is in California state court under California state laws.
The only thing the two cases have in common is they involve somebody impersonating somebody else - that is not ipso facto a crime or a cause for civil action. If it was the entire cast of Saturday Night Live would be in jail or getting sued every week.
This particular case violated California state laws since
1) the impersonation caused actual harm
2) It falls under California's law against deceptive business practises.
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You're correct. They should BOTH be illegal. The question is my mind is whether an officer of the law lying is worse than a CEO lying. It's clear, however, why a different CEO would think attempting to impersonate him for business advantage is worse. What's peculiar is that the law appears to agree so strongly with the CEO.
mighty fine (Score:2)
Wait, what? (Score:2)
I'm surprised if so that Tesla didn't just call in the FBI.
IANAL, maybe someone could weigh in with more knowledge on this?
Can You Say "Insider Dealing"???? (Score:2)
You see, if Tesla had fallen for the trick and had sent back any form of confidential and financial information, then the recipient would have effectively received "Insider Information" pertaining to Tesla's finances. The SEC takes a *VERY* dim view of this sort of thing [hint: illegal-level dim view] on the basis that a person who trades on the basis of "Insi
I don't think it's illegal. (Score:2)
I think it is rather clear it is not a crime because they are suing and there is no mention of criminal charges. They may find some civil regulation but it sounds to me more like retaliation where the lawsuit itself and the bad PR is the goal; maybe some money is settled or somebody resigns because of the bad PR.
I knew somebody who was frivolously sued by a multinational - he would have won if he
Missed opportunity (Score:2)
Best would have been to feed the phisher wrong information and observe the results. You need to see where the information goes beyond this moron. Getting him slapped for it is of minor importance. Could have used the news article from the FBI with the enclosed malware to trace the real IP's
Standard Intelligence Agencies practice i would say.
That's similar to Musk's email? (Score:2)
Todd Katz [...] emailed Tesla's chief financial officer using a similar email address as Musk's [...]. According to the lawsuit, Katz used "elontesla@yahoo.com"
Why would Elon Musk be using an email address that is in any way even remotely similar to "elontesla@yahoo.com"?
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He used a throwaway yahoo account! He was hoping their incompetence would help shield him from investigation!
(Joking!)
Re: What a maroon (Score:2)
You've never drunk emailed someone?
Re: What a maroon (Score:2)
Couldn't he at least registered a domain like "TeslaHolding.com" or something? Sad. And, like AOL email, I didn't know anyone still used Yahoo email...
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My wife and I have backup Yahoo mail accounts, since GMail has an odd habit of not working in China, where we frequently travel.
Yahoo is not bad for Web-based mail, BTW.
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Couldn't he at least registered a domain like "TeslaHolding.com" or something
Yeah, you have a point there. That's dumb as hell. It's like the paypalsupport@aol.ca shit. Come on man, at le
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What, he didn't think he could and would be tracked down?
What, he didn't think the fucking CFO of Tesla wouldn't see an email from "elontesla@yahoo.com" and open it only to see whether it's advertising 1) a penis enlargement treatment, 2) a weight loss treatment, 3) an exciting business proposal, etc. and then forward it to Musk with the heading "LOL who is this moron?"
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What, he didn't think he could and would be tracked down?
What, he didn't think the fucking CFO of Tesla wouldn't see an email from "elontesla@yahoo.com" and open it only to see whether it's advertising 1) a penis enlargement treatment, 2) a weight loss treatment, 3) an exciting business proposal, etc. and then forward it to Musk with the heading "LOL who is this moron?"
OK, "from a Yahoo email address similar to one Musk has used in the past", but I'd still expect the CEO to be sending questions such as that from a tesla.com address; was the Yahoo address used to send more public mails, so that his e-mail address inside Tesla wouldn't be used publicly?
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I think they missed a golden opportunity:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
Why they didn't concoct some really misleading information and send that out I don't understand...
They could have had a field day!
-nb
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Good lord, this. It's a shining opportunity. Follow that up by an attempt to recall the email, and an email sent to the address asking them to delete without reading, and sounding nervous.
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Perhaps he thought the CFO would think Elon Musk took one from Clinton's playbook and was using private email for official business.
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Another failure of our Saturday morning lack of cartoons.
You nin-cow-poop.
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He is using his company Tesla to kill with its bad autopilot.
Not *everyone*, just the dumb but wealthy people.
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"[every country on the planet] is a country with an economy built by slavery". Every . Single. One.
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But some did it more recently than others.
Of course, parts of the US economy currently operate based on slavery. I'm talking here about the prison labor system rather than things that are only metaphorically slavery.
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First of all: "using a similar email address as Musk's"
It's "using a similar e-mail address TO Musk's" (American cretins).
And secondly - the e-mail itself is an illiterate load of rubbish, no capital letters, 'txt speak', etc. WTF?
I too sometimes find myself irritated by things that seem to be common, American usage, but the thing is - the correct form of a language is decided by the native speakers of that language, and American English is slowly becoming a different language from British English; and of course, what is taught in British schools as 'correct' is only one version of the many, equally valid, English dialects. Just because they speak Geordie in Whitehall, that doesn't mean it isn't correct. BBC Parliament would be a who
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First of all: "using a similar email address as Musk's"
It's "using a similar e-mail address TO Musk's" (American cretins).
No, it's "using an e-mail address similar to Musk's", you incompetent buffoon.