A Facebook cofounder’s attacks against Tesla continues, and it comes with one of his boldest allegations against the company to date: Tesla is the next Enron.
Dustin Moskovitz, the Facebook cofounder who later went on to start Asana, claimed in a Threads post on Wednesday that the EV maker has misled consumers “on a massive scale,” accusing Tesla of lying about its Full-Self Driving software and the vehicle’s ranges.
Spokespeople for Tesla and Asana did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk did not directly address Moskovitz’s allegations but instead, on Friday, hurled insults and a slur at the Facebook cofounder on X.
Musk then followed up with another post: “I’d like to apologize to Dustin Moskovitz for calling him a ‘retard’. That was wrong. What I meant to say is that he is a pompous idiot whose his head is so far up his own ass that he is legally blind. I wish him the best and hope that someday we can be friends.”
I’d like to apologize to Dustin Moskowitz for calling him a “retard”. That was wrong.
What I meant to say is that he is a pompous idiot whose his head is so far up his own ass that he is legally blind.
I wish him the best and hope that someday we can be friends.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2024
Moskovitz had not yet addressed Musk’s posts on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Facebook cofounder acknowledged the gravity of his comments in his social media post.
“I know I sound crazy to most people who don’t follow $TSLA closely but at this point it really needs to be said,” he wrote. “This is Enron now, folks.”
To recap the two-decade-old scandal, Enron, the energy giant, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after it was caught using creative accounting to hide billions of dollars in debt and lying about its sources of revenue. The company’s chief executives were found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in 2006.
Moskovitz didn’t outline detailed evidence for each of his allegations, but he did share graphs from Tesla that he claims reveal how the automaker is trying to show an increase in miles driven with FSD, Tesla’s driver-assistance technology that is critical for the company’s path to autonomous driving and robotaxis.
The tech founder went as far as predicting that people would end up in jail.
No executives at Tesla have been charged with a crime, and the company has never been found liable for consumer or securities fraud.
The company has faced lawsuits and probes from federal regulators regarding Tesla’s FSD technology or Autopilot and its vehicle range, but there are no legal challenges related to the automaker misleading people about mileage usage with Tesla’s driver-assistance feature.
Most lawsuits have come from drivers who alleged that Tesla is misleading customers about FSD’s capabilities. So far, the company has either settled or has been found not liable.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was investigating whether Tesla sufficiently addressed issues with the company’s Autopilot software after its December recall of 2 million vehicles.
Tesla is also facing a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bloomberg reported last year that federal regulators are investigating how Tesla’s driver-assistance software was marketed and if Musk had any involvement in the promotion of the technology.
Drivers also have accused Tesla of inflating its vehicle mile range, bringing a class-action lawsuit against the company. A judge said in March that plaintiffs will have to go through individual arbitrations.
In the company’s 2023 third-quarter earnings report, Tesla disclosed that the Justice Department subpoenaed the company for information related to “vehicle range” and other matters.
Moskovitz also has long been skeptical of Elon Musk and his ventures.
Last year, the Asana founder suggested that Tesla and SpaceX are overvalued and that the companies’ leader is given too much credit.
“The point is I don’t really see these companies as dispensating impact, or at least don’t give nearly as much credit to him as others do,” Moskovitz said on Threads. “If they were really built on outward lies, rather than just self-deceptions (rose-colored glasses), then we should really see them as scams he got away with.”
Moskovitz has even called on Musk to resign from his executive role in all his companies after Musk called an antisemitic post on X the “actual truth.”
“I call on Elon Musk to resign,” Moskovitz said on Threads last year, adding that he should resign “(from everything).”
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