Elon Musk settles lawsuit against man he claimed ‘almost killed’ a Tesla worker
Elon Musk has decided to settle a defamation lawsuit against him brought by a man he claimed “almost killed” a Tesla worker – a claim that wasn’t backed by evidence.
At this point, Musk is quite used to being sued for defamation and other related matters.
Of course, there’s the famous “pedo” case, which he fought for years and ended up winning in a trial, but that was not related to Tesla.
When it comes to Tesla, the CEO has been embroiled in defamation lawsuits against a few people in the “Tesla short community,” which is a group of Tesla naysayers, including some actively betting against the company on the stock market.
One of those cases has been brought by Randeep Hothi, who was once a hero of the Tesla short community because he would often camp outside the Tesla Fremont factory in order to try to gather data about Tesla’s production – mostly to try to confirm the community’s belief that Tesla was going to fail in becoming a profitable mass producer of electric vehicles.
On one of those outings, he was asked to leave the property by a Tesla security employee, and when doing so, Tesla claimed that he intentionally came close to the employee with his vehicle.
Tesla had footage of the incident, which was never made public, but Tesla showed it to the police who determined that there was no case to be made.
That could have been the end of it, but the issue resurfaced amid a different battle between Musk and another prominent Tesla naysayer, Aaron Greenspan, who also sued Musk and others for defamation.
As Musk and Greenspan were sparring over emails, Musk claimed that Hothi “almost killed Tesla employees”:
[…] in the case of Hothi, [Hothi] almost killed Tesla employees. What was a sideswipe when Hothi hit one of our people could easily have been a death with 6 inches of difference.
Greenspan shared the email publicly, and it eventually led to Hothi suing Musk for defamation. The case, which was financed by fundraising publicized by the Tesla short community, lasted for three years.
Today, Hothi confirmed that Musk has settled with a $10,000 payment (via LA Times):
Recently, Musk surrendered. Rather than persist in fighting a nearly three-year-old defamation lawsuit filed by college student Randeep Hothi, the pugnacious chief executive of Tesla cried uncle, settling for $10,000. Tesla lawyers offered to settle several weeks ago, and on Monday, Hothi said, he accepted.
Musk famously said that he or Tesla will always choose to not fight legal battles that are unjust, even if they believe they can win, and to never settle when they believe the case is unjust.
He wrote when talking about Tesla’s approach to legal battles:
My commitment: We will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win. We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose.
It’s not clear if the settlement is an admission that the cause was, in fact, just, as Musk has yet to comment.
When first bringing the case to the court, Hothi claimed that he would have accepted a simple apology, but it looks like Musk preferred to pay $10,000.
Electrek’s Take
As usual with these court cases, the real winners are the lawyers. Musk clearly wasn’t careful enough with his words, something he seems to be making a habit of lately, and as for Hothi, while he won a small settlement, I personally doubt it was worth the headache.
I don’t know if he had a significant short position on Tesla or if he was just providing information to the community, but the Tesla shorts have been burned badly over the years.
Furthermore, their incessant quest for anecdotal data points about Tesla’s production supposedly failing, which Hothi was the face of at one point, proved futile at the end as the company has indeed become a profitable large-scale electric vehicle manufacturer.
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Environment
U.S. could reach deal with Canada that avoids oil and gas tariffs, energy secretary says
HOUSTON — The U.S. could reach an agreement with Canada that avoids tariffs on imports of oil, gas and other energy resources, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday.
Wright said such a scenario is “certainly is possible” but “it’s too early to say” in response to a question from CNBC during a press conference at the CERAWeek by S&P Global. The U.S. is in “active dialogue” with Canada and Mexico, the energy secretary said.
President Donald Trump has paused until April 2 tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports that are compliant with the agreement which governs trade in North America. Trump originally imposed broad 25% tariffs on goods from both countries as well as lesser 10% tariffs on energy imports from Canada.
It’s unclear, however, how much of the oil, gas and other energy that the U.S. imports from Canada is compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Wright declined to provide specifics when CNBC asked how much of those imports are USMCA compliant.
“I’m going to avoid the details for now,” Wright said. The energy secretary said, “We can get to no tariffs or very low tariffs but it’s got to be reciprocal” in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan.
Canada’s energy minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, warned last week that energy prices will rise in the U.S. if the tariffs on energy imports go into full effect.
“We will see higher gasoline prices as a function of energy, higher electricity prices from hydroelectricity from Canada, higher home heating prices associated with natural gas that comes from Canada and higher automobile prices,” Wilkinson told CNBC’s Megan Cassella in an interview.
The U.S. has been the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world for years. But many refiners in the U.S. are dependent on heavy crude imported from Canada. The U.S. imported 6.6 million barrels of crude oil per day on average in December, more than 60% of which came from Canada, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Wright acknowledged that the tariffs are creating uncertainty in energy markets as negotiations continue.
“We’re in the middle of negotiations for where things are going to go with tariffs, so that feels frightening and gripping right now but this time will pass,” Wright said. “Deals will be made, we’ll get certainty and we’ll have a positive economic environment for Americans going forward.”
U.S. crude oil fell more than 1% Monday to close at $66.03 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent closed at $69.28 per barrel. Crude oil futures have pulled back substantially as Trump’s trade policy creates uncertainty and OPEC+ has confirmed that it plans to gradually bring back 2.2 million barrels per day of production beginning next month.
Apple is rolling out a notable update to Apple Maps EV Routing for Ford drivers. Starting today, Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning drivers can use Apple Maps EV Routing via CarPlay to plan road trips that include Tesla Superchargers – or any station that uses the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector.
As I’ve explained before, Ford began shipping adapters CCS to NACS adapters that allow Mach-E and Lightning drivers to charge at Tesla Superchargers last year. Until today, however, Apple Maps was unaware of this change. This meant Apple Maps EV Routing would only route Mach-E and Lightning drivers to CCS charging stations, even though a route with Tesla Superchargers might’ve been more efficient.
With today’s change, Apple Maps via CarPlay will now include NACS fast charging stations, such as compatible Tesla Superchargers, in recommended route planning recommendations.
In a blog post, Ford explains:
Apple Maps EV Routing in CarPlay allows drivers to input their route and can view the estimated battery level they will have when they get to a destination, as well as suggested charging stations along the way if charging is needed. Previously, Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning drivers would have to manually open another app, then enter a NACS fast charger as a destination to have it added to their route. Now, with the Apple Maps EV Routing and NACS fast charger integration, the experience will be more seamless.
How to Use Apple Maps EV Routing in CarPlay:
- Connect your Apple iPhone to CarPlay.
- Open Apple Maps, go to Settings, and confirm your preferred charging network(s) – make sure you select a NACS fast charging station, such as Tesla Supercharger. You only have to do this once.
- Enter a destination.
- Apple Maps will then calculate the estimated state of charge you will have when you get to a destination.
- If a charge is required, depending on the fastest route, it will automatically route you to a NACS fast charging station.*
This is a significant update to the Apple Maps EV Routing experience for Ford drivers. Next up on my wishlist is support for battery preconditioning when using Apple Maps EV Routing. Android Auto added this feature last October.
The new feature is available now to iPhone users running iOS 17 or later. No software update is required for your car.
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James Murdoch, a Tesla board member and friend of CEO Elon Musk, has confirmed that he sold about $13 million in stock today as the stock (TSLA) crashed.
There has been a lot of insider trading at Tesla lately, and by trading, we mean selling – cause no insider is ever buying at Tesla.
We recently reported on Kimball Musk, Elon’s brother, and Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Taneja Vaibhav recently selling ahead of a recent drop in the company’s stock price.
Tesla’s chairwoman, Robyn Denholm, also sold $33 million worth of Tesla shares last week and over $100 million in the last 3 months.
Now, it’s James Murdoch’s turn. The Tesla board member just confirmed, through a required SEC filing, that he sold 54,776 Tesla shares for just over $13 million today:
He sold as Tesla’s stock crashed 15% today. It is now down more than 50% from its all-time high just a few months ago.
Murdoch was appointed to Tesla’s board in 2017.
He is better known as the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former CEO of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.
Murdoch was one of the Tesla board directors who was forced to return almost $1 billion in cash and stock options to Tesla as part of a settlement for over-compensation.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla insiders are unloading, and those are just the ones we know about. Public companies only have to report insider trading for board directors and listed top executives.
For the latter, Tesla purposefully only lists 3 people: Elon, Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s CFO, and Tom Zhu, whose role at Tesla has bit quite fluid in recent years.
Therefore, we don’t know about the dozens of other top executives potentially selling their shares right now amid a giant correction.
It’s really suspicious because there are clear top leaders at Tesla who are often on Tesla’s earnings calls, and they are not even listed, like Lars Moravy, for example.
But it’s par for the course at Tesla, which has some of the worst corporate governance I have ever seen. It’s truly shameful.
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