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Tesla Is Suing An Oil-Company Executive For Impersonating Elon Musk (businessinsider.com)
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.
What, he didn't think he could and would be tracked down?
When people proclaim their good qualities so publicly, it's because they want to con you.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if Elon paid him to do it to get more publicity
...For having to read that email at all. It's almost hard to tell what he's even asking.
Is Apple going to sue Elon Musk for impersonating Steve Jobs?
Laughed so hard!
Wonderful.
(y)
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.
A dingo ate my sig...
why you so cautious w Q3/4 gm guidance on call? also plz list my gr8test wkneses an prsnl failngs. can also leave cpy of all imprtant secrt financial docs by bench at park? thx for hrd wrk, i am yr leedur. em. oil is dum, lol!
He is using his company Tesla to kill with its bad autopilot.
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.
I stole this Sig
I hae to assume that is short for "Quest for Integrity Group".
Still looking since 1994!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is Jason Wheeler going to get his ass fired and become *FORMER* CFO?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
Aren't you already in trouble with the email?
He is using his company Tesla to kill with its bad autopilot.
Not *everyone*, just the dumb but wealthy people.
It's okay if an FBI agent impersonates a journalist but it's not okay for an oil company exec to impersonate Elon Musk?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Katz: "It's not easy impersonating Elon, I had to blow up 3 rockets to do it."
Table-ized A.I.
for the wrongful death lawsuits.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Them's some mighty fine integrities you got there, Mr. Katz. Mighty fine.
I don't really know Silicon Valley Corporate culture.... Is it really acceptable to:
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.
Maybe I am mistaken, but how is this not a Federal crime?
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?
He's truly Death's own autopilot.
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 think you might be on to something, not because of the email itself, but because of the potential content that the impersonator sought to obtain.
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 "Insider Information" has, effectively, a massive advantage over the whole of the rest of the market.
The precise law under which a prosecution might be considered might vary, but this easily has the potential to fall within the scope of specific trading laws, but also basic fraud, because "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception" is the [a] textbook definition of fraud.
Now, for a successful prosecution, the SEC/DoJ would have to be able to show intent, to which the defence would doubtlessly be, "But I did it for the lolz"... However, the one thing that goes in the SEC's corner for that dispute would be that Mr Katz is himself a CFO. He cannot possibly disclaim any knowledge of the seriousness of an attempt at gaining insider information.
This is the sort of test case that I would personally like to see prosecuted, with the DoJ asking for punitive damages. The only way to stamp out this sort of thing is to "catch people at it" and then throw the book at them, to make it crystal clear that such underhand practices will not be tolerated by the market. Further, if Quest Integrity Group have even a shred of the decency that they claim in their name, they will immediate dismiss their CFO for Gross Misconduct. How they react to this will be a very clear indicator of their corporate culture...
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.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
they were rounder too!!!
Like all Repiblicans. They hate normal people.
You actually just described the DNC so-called leadership. (We have incontrovertible proof.) You know, the DNC that represents the Party of the Klu Klux Klan.
The Democrats being the Party of the Klu Klux Klan is a part of history and fact, no matter how much revisionist liars try to change it. We have incontrovertible proof.
If you think anyone, anyone at all, in the Demo party is looking out for you, you are sadly mistaken. Ask any honest black or Mexican if they are better off than they were 7 years ago, The truth is quite shocking.
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"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
And America is a country with an economy built by slavery, yet Americans are still proud of their history. I'm not sure why there has to be so much division between politcal parties. Leave that to childish pursuits like football and anonymous Slashdot comments.
"[every country on the planet] is a country with an economy built by slavery". Every . Single. One.
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 didn't go bankrupt during the years of litigation; so he settled, they won and his lawyer won.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Wow. It's been a while since I seen something like this. I thought all you biggits have died died off. Soon. Very soon. Your shitty generation will be gone and buried. Maybe in the back woods where you rapped your children.
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.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This is an attempt to gain insider information in order to unfairly profit in the financial markets.
It seems like the SEC should be investigating this... ...as well as the FBI. This is, essentially, a phishing scam which I believe is illegal.
Or, is big oil just so wired into the federal government that they can make the criminal investigations go away?