The U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in 2002 in response to financial scandals like Enron, a Texas company I’ve mentioned on this blog several times in terms of mounting allegations that Tesla has engaged in systemic fraud.

SOX, required for any publicly traded company and their executives, was designed to improve corporate governance, financial reporting, and accountability. While its authors focused mainly on the financial reporting and accounting irregularities such as in Enron, they also covered far more area of corporate responsibility including safety.

If any executive at Tesla, and especially their CEO, has made false statements about the safety of products or services (such that there’s a material impact on financial performance of the company) they likely violated SOX.

At this point it’s hard to argue that Elon Musk doesn’t make false statements.

• In 2018 the Tesla CEO stated its vehicles would be capable of fully autonomous driving by the end of that year. Obviously the company has not only failed to achieve that result, they have been exposed for FIVE YEARS already and in 2023 they’re accused of massive failures including inability to properly recognize stop signs.
• The Tesla CEO spread disinformation that his Autopilot system is safer than human drivers. In 2019 he stated “the probability of an accident with Autopilot is just less.” Obviously the company has failed to achieve that result (again, failing to recognize stop signs). Studies show Autopilot has been involved in hundreds of accidents, some of them fatal allegedly BECAUSE OF AUTOPILOT. Experts since at least 2016 have warned Tesla is not yet capable of “Autopilot”, and that Tesla should be held responsible for causing more crashes while fraudulently marketing its basic Level-2 ADAS as “Full Self Driving”.
• While Tesla officially says it tells drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel, studies show such a warning is ignored completely BECAUSE OF CEO COMMENTS CONTRADICTING THEM. He has allegedly encouraged drivers to take their hands off the wheel (such as suggesting that drivers “go to sleep” while using Autopilot). Drivers would be safer if Tesla made no warning at all because the CEO’s statements would be treated with caution, instead of his suggestions being seen as reason to ignore Tesla’s warnings.

It’ll be interesting to see if SOX weighs in here on the Enron-like situation, since a lot of publicly traded companies still spend a lot of time and effort to practice some form of compliance. They’re probably wondering why Tesla doesn’t even try.

There’s a growing timeline of Tesla lies about driverless capabilities.

And we’re not even talking yet about false statements about mergers or the CEO openly stating he intentionally ignores regulations to make avoidable mistakes.

Well, I guess we might make some mistakes. Who knows? […] I want to be clear. I do not respect the SEC. I do not respect them. […] I am the largest shareholder in the company. And I can just call for a shareholder vote and get anything done that I want.

I guess it’s not a mystery how he takes a bully approach and doesn’t even try to care about safety.

Enforcement of SOX was meant to stop fraud and erosion of the market, and eventually sent Enron’s executives to court for jail sentences. Yet we haven’t seen much of those indications for this mediocre car manufacturer constantly implicated in very obvious design failures that are widely impacting public safety (let alone its own financial results).

There are even more safety failure accusations such as from Tesla whistleblower Karl Hansen, who filed a civil lawsuit in Nevada for violations of SOX.

…each allegation is indelibly disturbing. The collective picture they paint is of a culture where the bearers of bad news are banished. And with Musk himself no mere micro-manager but a proudly self-professed nano-manager, it becomes challenging to argue that the culture took form without his taking notice, providing consent, or nodding approval.

The Tesla CEO destroying his own team, silencing any and all critics in a massive cover-up to artificially promote his success?

Again Texas?

Sounds like another case of “LiveWrong“, which may someday be reported as systemic failure to care about a big bully cheater.

Armstrong relies on his infamy to draw listeners and viewers to his content. Lance said in the documentary Lance that he believes he is still relevant. “This is gonna sound terrible. But I am relevant. I am,” the former racer said. […] Lance maintained his facade by suing journalists who suggested he cheated. He obtained a settlement from the Sunday Times after the outlet cast doubt on the legality of Armstrong’s victories. Armstrong ostracized team members who disagreed with his methods.

Oh the irony. Armstrong sounds just like the Tesla CEO with “…I am relevant. I am” after stock market gambles (Armstrong’s financial advisor was an early Uber investor) gave him money to play a journalist trying to destroy journalism.

Update: The Motley Fool says the Hyperloop hoopla announced 10 years ago by Elon Musk is another fraud.

The Boring Company has deserted numerous pitches it made to cities… Musk originally said Tesla cars would zip around the tunnel at over 100 mph on tracks. What actually exists is [one Las Vegas] tunnel where drivers ferry passengers around in Teslas at around 30 mph. The future really is now.

You may recall that the invention of the car license plate was to help stop hit and run crimes against cyclists (and pedestrians).

A prominently displayed number on a plate was supposed to help increase chances of criminal prosecution, making roads safer.

Fast forward to today and the license plate gets reported as useless while cars are targeting bicyclists in hit and run attacks known as “dooring”.

Here’s a perfect example from 2022. Everything is caught on video by the bicyclist, and yet…

Walker contacted the police as soon as he got home, who were unable to determine the owner of the vehicle that “doored” him. Walker said the police told him they suspect the license plates were cloned. (License plate cloning is the illegal act of “displaying someone else’s registration number on a vehicle to hide its true identity.”)

What is dooring? It’s an insidious crime, described here from the victim perspective.

…it was a deliberate hit and not someone misjudging a close pass,” Walker told Bicycling. Footage from the rearview camera he keeps mounted on his bike revealed two cars coming up from behind him on the road. The backdoor on the second car opened as it approached Walker and made hard contact with him.

A passenger in a car uses the door, opening it suddenly like a battering weapon from behind, to inflict physical harm on cyclists.

It’s not isolated, or a case of one interaction, and more like an organized antisocial trend especially among those who set out with a hit and run mentally.

That means whether a passenger is in an Uber, or in a stolen car with bogus plates, the car door is increasingly used as a weapon with far too little accountability.

At least 200 similar dooring cases, in which a car door opening at the wrong time injures a cyclist, have been reported in the past five years, based on data from TransBASE. The total number is likely higher, as the data only includes incidents reported to the police. […] “The biggest problem we see is actually about Uber,” said Michael Stephenson, the founding attorney of Bay Area Bicycle Law. “A lot of cyclists who are calling us are getting doored by passengers.”

Another video has just been released that details how cars carefully target cyclists, and swing the door as a weapon.

These assaults appear to be happening to multiple cyclists over the course of several days, suggesting they are not isolated attacks. At least 14 cyclists have been targeted and eight have been hit…. “Some of the people said that they were being intentionally rammed from behind to be knocked over,” Charlotte Hryse, a volunteer with East Bay Bike Party said in an interview with ABC7 News. One of the perpetrators was caught on video by a local cyclist. In the incident caught on the riders bike cam, the vehicle is seen moving at driving speed when the driver swerves up next to a cyclist riding in a bike lane. The passenger in the vehicle then flings the passenger side door open in an attempt to hit the cyclist.

And here’s the real kicker to the story, which brings us back to the point about identity and investigations in hit and run attacks.

East Bay Bike Party stated they believe three separate and possibly stolen cars are being used in these attacks. The vehicles are being described as Hyundais or Kias.

The Hyundais or Kias are so notorious for being easy to steal, insurance companies have been refusing to cover them.

The big question looming in cities will become why are they enabling such brazen crimes with cars, terrorism even, instead of investing in safe cycling infrastructure. It costs a city far less to protect the cyclists than ignore an explosion in car crimes.

Tesla are basically unsafe to have on roads. This is no longer even worth debating, as another firetruck has been seriously damaged and taken out of service by a Kamikaze.

One person is dead after slamming a Tesla into a fire truck Saturday morning, officials say. The accident happened along I-680 at Treat Boulevard near Walnut Creek just before 4 a.m. Fire officials say the truck was struck in the rear by the Tesla Model S…

At least Chinese balloons are highly visible from a distance and moving slowly, allowing for a considered response. These Tesla attacks on America come in like a ballistic missile targeting first responders.

And if the notoriously suicidal Tesla doesn’t injure first responders directly, its design failures still will seriously distract/disable their abilities to respond to other real emergencies.

Authorities said the truck was badly damaged and will be out of service for an extended period.

Tesla causing massively wasteful fires is bad enough, disabling hugely expensive taxpayer fire trucks in California is next level evil.

And to be clear, that truck was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing.

…the fire engine “was stopped at the rear of the scene to protect personnel and assist in diverting traffic.”

Diverting normal traffic, sure. Also poviding a defensive perimeter against Tesla Kamikaze attacks. Is Tesla paying that cost?

Four fire fighters directly targeted in the Tesla path of attack were fortunately not killed.

Given the early morning time of the accident, and the freeway location, there’s a very high probability the driver was asleep and relying entirely on the fraud of Tesla’s FSD.

Perhaps more to the point, the bright white seats (warning: covered in blood) were in a very reclined position.

Tesla “driverless” software has a long and tragic history of slamming into highly visible large trucks and emergency vehicles, terminating its sleeping driver. Remember the January 2016 news?

…Elon Musk said the firm was in the process of making improvements to its auto pilot system aimed at dramatically reducing the number of crashes blighting the model S.

Promises, processes.

Here’s what that CEO’s 2016 prediction about “dramatically reducing” crashes has meant in reality: a massive increase in deaths.

Tesla Death Toll as of 2/18/2023: 356 (Autopilot: 19)

For the record, once again, that rediculously underreported January 2016 autopilot fatality was Tesla driving straight into the back of a service vehicle despite bright lights flashing.

So here we are in 2023… wondering why Tesla hasn’t been grounded?

These horrific crashes obviously don’t blight the fraud of Tesla nearly enough because people keep signing up and paying far too much money just to kill themselves at great taxpayer expense.

The news today is yet again truly tragic, and totally avoidable (ban Tesla).

A mediocre company with below average engineers making cars worth not a lot, maybe nothing at all, for some reason is allowed to repeatedly cause significant suffering.

Given almost a decade of its “fire, ready, aim” crashes into giant trucks, Tesla clearly is riddled with dumb mistakes and design failures that harm the pubic.