Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz has been a critic of Elon Musk and Tesla for years, however his newest jabs on the billionaire CEO and his EV large had been a bit extra pointed than normal.
“I do know I sound loopy to most individuals who don’t comply with $TSLA carefully however at this level it actually must be stated. That is Enron now, people,” he wrote in a Thread on Friday. “It might maintain going, however persons are going to jail on the finish.”
Moskovitz’s comparability of Tesla to Enron, the Houston-based energy-trading and utility firm that went bankrupt in 2001 after one of many largest accounting scandals in historical past, is severe, to make sure. Enron used fraudulent accounting practices to overstate its revenues by 95%, however it took years for regulators to find the scandal. Fortune’s Bethany McLean was the primary to lift questions on Enron in a March 2001 article, finally resulting in the corporate’s downfall.
Whereas Musk and Tesla haven’t been accused of overstating their revenues, Asana’s Moskovitz alleges they’re outright mendacity about their Full Self-Driving expertise. “The info is offered in fraudulent methods, and it doesn’t say what they declare it says even once they make it up,” he wrote. “Tesla has dedicated shopper fraud on a large scale, from mendacity about FSD, ranges, and (just lately, unconfirmed!) even inflating odometers…additionally securities fraud.”
Representatives for Asana and Tesla didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for touch upon Moskovitz’s claims. Nonetheless, Musk responded to Moskovitz on X.com on Friday. “What a r****d,” he wrote, following that up with: “I’d wish to apologize to Dustin Moskowitz for calling him a “r****d”. That was incorrect. What I meant to say is that he’s a pompous fool whose his head is to this point up his personal ass that he’s legally blind. I want him the perfect and hope that sometime we might be pals.”
Moskovitz co-founded Fb earlier than beginning the work administration software program firm Asana in 2008 and has grow to be a outstanding critic of Musk in recent times. The tech entrepreneur believes Musk has overpromised with regards to Tesla EVs’ vary and expertise benefit over rivals, duping buyers and his staff. Moskovitz, who has been a serious donor to the Democratic Occasion up to now, can also be a critic of Musk’s politics, even calling on the Tesla CEO to resign after he referred to as an antisemitic put up “the precise reality” final 12 months.
This time, Moskovitz pointed to irregularities in a graph that detailed miles pushed by Tesla’s Full Self-Driving expertise within the firm’s first-quarter earnings name, labeling it “fraudulent.”
“The graph Tesla AI launched yesterday was manipulated to indicate an exponential progress development,” he argued, including that this possible was executed to assist Tesla’s robotaxi announcement. Earlier this month, Musk introduced that Tesla will reveal its robotaxi at an August 8 occasion, and teased a ride-sharing operate in Tesla’s app.
Musk and Tesla definitely have a protracted historical past of constructing predictions that grow to be, on the very least, a bit untimely, significantly with regards to self-driving. Again in 2015, Musk informed Fortune that Tesla’s automobiles would have stage 4 autonomy, which might permit for unmonitored self-driving, in two years. In 2019, the billionaire CEO adopted up that prediction by saying that he was “very assured” there can be 1 million totally autonomous Tesla robotaxis on the street by 2020. Whereas Tesla made immense progress on its self-driving tech since 2015, at this time the corporate solely has a stage 2 autonomous driving system, which suggests the automobile can management some features however the driver nonetheless will need to have palms on the steering wheel.
Tesla has additionally confronted authorized challenges as a result of a few of its Full Self-Driving claims just lately. Attorneys from Pomerantz LLP alleged that Tesla’s tech is a fraud in a case filed in federal courtroom in California this month. The attorneys declare that Tesla tricked buyers by overselling its Full Self-Driving software program, exposing them to regulatory threat and status hurt because of the risk of accidents or accidents. The lawsuit comes after the California Division of Motor Autos accused Tesla of false promoting with reference to its Full Self-Driving expertise.
For Moskovitz, Tesla’s historical past of constructing doubtful claims is simply an instance of why buyers ought to keep a wholesome quantity of skepticism. “And I assume only a PSA to buyers on the market: you solely get eventual justice with the SEC, in case you even get that. You shouldn’t assume you’re being informed the reality by any of those public corporations,” he wrote. “We inform the reality at Asana, however empirically that isn’t true of different corporations and I don’t know anymore the best way to inform which is which.”
