Something in this story tells me Angela Chao shouldn’t have been in a Tesla if she really had wanted to stay alive.

…Ms. Chao died at a Texas ranch after backing her Tesla into a pond. “Angela Chao’s death at a private Texas ranch in Blanco, County is suspicious,” Mr. Bass wrote.

Her car reversed itself into a pond and 15 feet under water? That doesn’t read like a conspiracy, unless you include Tesla not being banned for being the sad lawn dart of American roads. Or if you include Tesla’s CEO fraudulently boasting that his cars magically float like a witch duck boat.

Despite holding degrees from Harvard and achieving top positions in U.S. society and business, the news portrays the victim somehow as totally incapable of handling a Tesla gear selector or avoiding harm from reversing suddenly into a pond.

This situation underscores a longstanding concern I’ve been addressing for nearly two decades in presentations, training and writing: highly sophisticated fraud schemes, such as Tesla, can destroy even some of the most high performing and intelligent people.

Individuals who show high talent or intelligence will NOT automatically avoid falling victim to straightforward scams like advance fee fraud (AFF), given a particular set of cognitive vulnerability exploits (e.g. bias). Chao knew nothing about automotive safety engineering, which is why she put herself in grave danger by getting into a Tesla in the first place. We’ve seen similar tragedy especially among highly successful medical doctors who unfortunately trusted Tesla, only to be burned to death.

Chao’s company management, her family, her friends and her asset managers all should have prohibited such an obvious and unnecessary risk to her life.

For instance, individuals with no knowledge of Africa at all are the most likely to suddenly start sending money to “Nigerian princes” in hopes of swift wealth. Chao’s experience with throwing her life away in an obvious fraud parallels this scenario, akin to squandering family wealth in anticipation of prosperity gain or self-enrichment from a smooth-talking African “techno-king” (e.g. South African born Tesla CEO) promising an impossible future.

Without fraud, Tesla wouldn’t exist.

This also brings to mind a recent pertinent technical warning, which should probably get more attention.

A Greek accident investigator is petitioning NHTSA to recall 1.6 million Teslas over their ability to shift from Drive to Reverse without touching the brake pedal.

Would proper handling by regulators of this itsy “BTSI” problem have prevented Chao’s tragedy?

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Update March 9th: The WSJ reports

A Mistake in a Tesla and a Panicked Final Call: The Death of Angela Chao. What happened on a remote Texas ranch in a billionaire shipping scion’s final hours

And Business Insider reports on the WSJ report:

Only minutes after saying goodbye, Chao called one of her friends, saying that her vehicle, a Tesla Model X SUV, wound up in a pond after attempting to make a three-point turn. According to the Journal’s account, Chao told her friend that she had put her car in reverse instead of drive — a mistake she had made before — leading her to back over an embankment and into the pond.

And the New York Post clearly implies she died because she trusted Tesla.

…Chao left the guesthouse around 11:30 p.m. to head back to the main house, where her son was sleeping. It was cold out, so she decided to take her Tesla Model X SUV for the four-minute drive rather than walk. But within minutes, she called one of her friends in a panic. While making a K-turn, she put the car in reverse instead of drive, she told them. While going backwards, the car went over an embankment and into a pond — and was sinking fast. Her friends immediately ran to help and one woman jumped in the pond, the Journal reported. The property’s ranch manager and his wife came outside after hearing the commotion and somebody called 911.

She and her friends didn’t immediately call 911. Then first responders fumbled and faced difficulty entering the aristocrats’ sprawling ranch, let alone freeing her from the notoriously defective “deathtrap Tesla“.

In a case known as Anton Valeryevich Podchasov v. Russia the European Court of Human Rights has published the following conclusion upholding privacy and protecting encryption.

80. The Court concludes from the foregoing that the contested legislation providing for the retention of all Internet communications of all users, the security services’ direct access to the data stored without adequate safeguards against abuse and the requirement to decrypt encrypted communications, as applied to end-to-end encrypted communications, cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society. In so far as this legislation permits the public authorities to have access, on a generalised basis and without sufficient safeguards, to the content of electronic communications, it impairs the very essence of the right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Convention. The respondent State has therefore overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard.

81. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

The conclusion clearly states Russia is violating Article 8.

Right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence.

The case stemmed from Russian legislation that mandated telecommunication service providers must retain both the actual content of communications and associated metadata for defined durations, without discriminating based on content or users. Furthermore, a 2017 directive from the Russian Federal Security Service demanded that Telegram provide technical details necessary for decrypting communications.

The heartbreaking Washington Post account of the tragic demise of a Tesla employee underscores a significant detail. The owner was under the influence of alcohol at the time of his fatal crash caused by the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.

Notably, The Washington Post’s coverage meticulously substantiated the role of Tesla in the unfortunate fatality, killing an owner who believed he could trust his CEO’s outlandish statements about FSD safety.

From this harrowing low point, the response unfolds predictably.

Tesla’s CEO has attempted to discredit the narrative by perpetuating the same perilous fallacy that operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol with FSD engaged would ensure safety.

The facts remain stark: the Tesla staff killed was absolutely convinced he was utilizing FSD at the time of his crash, a detail unequivocally clarified by The Washington Post.

More to the point, the consequences of a CEO’s engineering culture that created FSD are tragically evident, given how his intoxicated staff were burned to death for believing FSD would protect them.

Consider this: If the Tesla employee who met a tragic end was NOT utilizing FSD despite thinking he had it running all the time, it implies a systemic overestimation within Tesla’s ranks regarding FSD even being installed — a horrible deception even more egregious.

Tesla’s CEO unnecessarily compounds all the issues by obnoxiously perpetuating a false notion that driving under the influence with FSD is safe. He encourages further perilous behavior (while also proving the Washington Post reporting accurate). But he also undermines the very notion that FSD has any integrity at all when installed or during operation.

This situation evokes another urgent warning: Refrain from engaging with Tesla vehicles, and advocate against their usage among friends and family.

The Tesla response would be like if the CEO of Boeing suggested, after a plane’s cabin door plug unexpectedly detached mid-flight, that passengers could prevent such occurrences by relying even more on known defective engineering — continuing to fly as usual despite news of a serious failure.

Boeing’s planes were GROUNDED without any fatalities. Why are Tesla still allowed to operate on public roads with hundreds already dead and rising?