上海的月亮: EN — LARRY ROMANOFF: Debunking Elon Musk – Part 5

Elon Musk’s propensity for fraud has all the hallmarks of a congenital defect, seeming to have been part of his character nearly from birth. Already in his early 20s, Musk was engaged in, and being sued for, fraud, in both civil and criminal courts. Since then, his acts of deception and deceit for the purpose of undeserved and/or unlawful gain have increased in both size and breadth, to say nothing of their escalating brazenness.

College Education Fraud

In his early “entrepreneurial” years, Elon Musk was already lying about his educational credentials (and other things) to delude investors, and being sued for fraud in the process. One such lawsuit by an investor alleged that Musk lied not only about his education but made many other false statements and stole business secrets. [1]

Moreover, Elon Musk’s claimed college “degrees” appear to have been granted without completing the requirements and thus were undeservedly (fraudulently?) obtained. [2] The University of Pennsylvania seems to have inexplicably “waived the requirements” necessary for a degree. It seems that“investors quietly arranged a diploma”, presumably by financial contribution.[3] As I stated in Part 1 of this series, “We already know that almost anyone can obtain admission to (and graduation from) Harvard University with a payment of $3 to $5 million, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that U Penn would grant (sell) a degree to Elon Musk when an “investor” opened his cheque book.” [4]

OpenAI: Non-Profit if You Own it, but ….

Elon Musk’s frauds, both attempted and successful, continue from there. One appears to have been a massive attempted fraud involving OpenAI. Musk was involved with Sam Altman in the early days of OpenAI and by all accounts pressed very hard to (a) construct the company as a non-profit, and (b) fold the company into Tesla. First, why maintain OpenAI as a non-profit entity? Well, the most important characteristic of a non-profit – by definition – is that it has no value. You cannot “sell” a non-profit to anyone because it makes no money and the purchaser would never recover his purchase cost. Thus, had Musk been successful, OpenAI would have been transferred into Tesla at no cost, and this is where the fraud arises.

Elon Musk’s argument (or pretense) for folding OpenAI into Tesla was that this would be the only way the company could “compete with Google”. However, recent history suggests that OpenAI experienced no difficulty in competing with Google or anyone else, evidenced by its pre-eminence in the AI world and its stock market value of around $200 billion.

During their dispute, it seems that Musk managed to have Sam Altman temporarily removed as CEO [5] and, more recently, he sued OpenAI in an attempt to have a court declare OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit model an illegal act. [6] But Altman presented compelling evidence in the lawsuit that Musk had no intention of keeping OpenAI as a nonprofit, but that “he just wanted to be the one to turn it into a for-profit“. The court threw out Musk’s claim. [7]Had Elon Musk succeeded in his attempt, he would have taken over OpenAI at no cost, folded it into Tesla (or subsequently into another company he owned privately), and would have gained about $200 billion in the process.

Twitter Frauds

Elon Musk attempted two huge frauds involving his purchase of Twitter, with the SEC continuing their $150 million lawsuit against him. First, Musk began buying Twitter shares but failed to disclose this fact when his purchase exceeded the legal limit for privacy. [8] Musk knew his undisclosed purchases were illegal, but he didn’t want to drive up the price of Twitter shares by revealing his intention to buy the platform. The SEC claims he misled and defrauded investors and shareholders. When his purchases were revealed, Musk then claimed he had discovered irregularities in Twitter’s accounts and circumstances, and had changed his mind about the purchase. There immediately resulted an investor lawsuit claiming Musk fraudulently created the uncertainty to drive down the share price in advance of his purchase.[9] That clearly appears to have been his intent, but Musk was unrepentant in being discovered and sued. He posted on Twitter: “They spend their time on s–t like this when there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished”.

There was still more. With the purchase price thought too high, Musk attempted to back out of his offer, only to settle at the last moment because the courts were about to force him to complete the purchase. [10] To add yet another fraud to the mix, Musk sold billions of dollars of Tesla shares to partially finance his purchase of Twitter. But Tesla was on the verge of announcing a major decrease in its projected production and delivery numbers, which would have driven down Tesla’s share price, perhaps substantially. Shareholders allege that Musk had “inside knowledge” of this when he sold his shares prior to the announcement. [11]Trading on inside knowledge is not only fraudulent, but criminally fraudulent.

There were accusations of yet more fraud. Musk’s actions toward, and public announcements about, Twitter, had a significant effect on the platform’s share price, reputation, and advertising appeal. Twitter’s suit against Musk claimed Musk intended to begin a competing platform and planned his actions for the purpose of damaging a major competitor. In the end, he hurt only himself. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has a permanent stink of fraud permeating all of it.

Tesla’s Autopilot

Another series of frauds involves Tesla, all of which are substantial and serious. One involves Tesla’s Autopilot or “Full Self-Driving” feature which Elon Musk falsely, and heavily, promoted as autonomous, when it was no such thing. This constitutes fraud on a grand scale, since these Tesla autos have been involved in numerous accidents, many fatal. A Washington Post investigation found that Tesla’s vaunted “autopilot” technology was linked to 736 of the 807 US crashes involving driver assistance. [12] Musk’s Tesla software is under criminal investigation in the US and prohibited in China, [13] but Musk blithely maintains that “cars operating in Tesla’s Autopilot mode are safer than those piloted solely by human drivers”. [14] Yet it was so bad that more than 2 million Tesla cars had to be recalled – almost all the Teslas sold in the US since inception.

Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” and Autopilot systems have been involved in far more incidents than driver-assistance systems from all other manufacturers combined. Source

Another similar instance was Elon Musk – falsely and fraudulently – over-stating the driving range of Tesla cars. Musk and Tesla are being sued in multiple jurisdictions, for fraud and false advertising. But this is more serious than false advertising and really constitutes an enormous financial fraud as well. It is reasonable to argue that many individuals would never have purchased a Tesla car if they had known the truth about its limited driving range, and that means billions of dollars flowed into the pockets of Tesla and Musk, based on Musk’s fraudulent statements. According to an article in Ars Technica, [17]Tesla exaggerated its EV range so much that drivers thought their cars were broken, and countless thousands of purchasers were flooding Tesla’s phone lines to make repair appointments. [18] The US Department of Justice is pursuing this fraud. [19] Tesla had previously been fined millions in South Korea for inflated range estimates, and the US EPA ordered Tesla to reduce their estimates for all car models. Other countries are involved as well.

According to a report in Forbes, [20] Tesla deliberately programmed its dashboards to exaggerate the distance a Tesla could drive on a full charge. Reuters reported [21] that Tesla designed an algorithm that would deliberately inflate the distance a vehicle could travel on a full battery charge, “and the company did so under a directive from Elon Musk”. Tesla received so many complaints about range that Musk created an entire secret team to discourage customers from bringing in their cars for inspection, and to cancel their appointments. [22]

Fraudulent Refusal of Warranty Repairs

Also in the category of fraud, an investigative report from Reuters claims Tesla systematically blamed owners for problems that were internally known to be related to defective parts. [22a]

Taking Tesla Private

Another huge fraud, an inexplicable one, with shareholder losses estimated in the billions, was Elon Musk’s series of posts on Twitter that he was taking Tesla private. Musk posted twice on Twitter: (1) “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured”, and (2) “Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that it’s contingent on a shareholder vote”. Tesla’s share price rose, but then plunged on the news that the posts were fraudulent. [23]

The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Musk with securities fraud, Musk deciding once again to “double down” on his bet, and so the Tesla board rejected a proposed settlement from the SEC. However, the SEC also doubled down and the Tesla board accepted with humiliation a much less generous settlement where Elon Musk was removed as Chairman of Tesla, and Musk and Tesla fined $20 million each. They further agreed that all of Musk’s future posts about Tesla would have to be pre-approved by the company’s lawyers. [24] There was also a civil class-action lawsuit with investor losses calculated as high as $12 billion. [25] But in a bizarre turn of events, a jury found Musk not guilty in the civil suit, even though a federal judge had already ruled that Elon Musk lied. [26][27]

The reason this fraud appears inexplicable is that it had no apparent purpose. Musk’s posts produced a brief sudden rise in the share price and perhaps Musk benefited by selling some shares, but that explanation appears insufficient. The only assumption that comes to my mind is that Elon Musk made those posts in one of his drug-fueled stupors and that he somehow thought it was humorous.

God Save the Queen

The Canadian government has frozen $43 million in electric vehicle (EV) rebate payments owed to Tesla and declared the automaker ineligible for all future iZEV (Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles) programs. Source

Another massive Tesla fraud was in Canada. After insults from both Donald Trump and Elon Musk, [28] Canada removed Tesla from the list of EVs qualifying for sales rebates, [29] and Tesla sales dropped by 70% in one month. [30][31] Upon learning that Tesla would be excluded from Canada’s EV sales rebate program (up to $5,000 per electric vehicle), Musk doubled down and attempted a very large and brazen fraud: Suddenly, Canadian Tesla dealers (all owned by the Tesla company), reported massive sales of more than 8,600 cars in only one weekend, one Tesla store alone claiming 2,558 sales in a single Saturday. That would be one-quarter of Tesla’s total annual Canadian sales, all in only two days. [32]

This was more than nothing: it involved almost $45 million in cash rebates which were being fraudulently claimed. [33] Nothing this large would have occurred without the express approval of Elon Musk. It seems that Musk will almost always double down on any conflict. In this instance, in a claim too bizarre or surreal to believe, Musk blithely dismissed this as a “misunderstanding” and said he would sue the Canadian government if they didn’t release the $43 million to Tesla dealers. [34]If this doesn’t qualify as “brazen and unrepentant” fraud, I don’t know what would.

Note that Tesla does not keep the rebate money; it must be paid to the purchasers of autos. But the point is that with Tesla excluded from the rebate program, consumers face a choice of buying another brand and receiving a cash rebate of $5,000 or buying a Tesla and receiving nothing. This would severely damage Tesla sales since a great many consumers would opt for the brands with the rebates. So, when Tesla learned they would be removed from the rebate program on the following Monday, they processed nearly 9,000 fake “sales” on the two days prior. If successful, this would have permitted Tesla to continue offering rebates even though they were excluded from the program.

Tesla Accounting Fraud?

The Financial Times produced a report on an investigation into Tesla’s earnings, [35] saying there were things that “just don’t add up”. As one example, Tesla claimed to have made large investments in capital expenditures that didn’t appear anywhere in the asset statement. There were other factors suggestive of accounting frauds, such as Tesla claiming to have a huge cash flow but still increasing debt. [36] That is definitely a red flag. The FT did a partial retraction of their initial comments, but by no means answered all the questions, half a billion dollars still unaccounted for. Concern is heightened with the news that Tesla board members and executives had been selling off their shareholdings, Tesla’s chairwoman Robyn Denholm sold more than $100 million in only a few months, and other top officers have apparently sold more than $100 million worth in about one month. [37] Also, reports are that professional investors were increasingly shorting the stock.

Full information is not easily available, but indications of a potential accounting fraud do exist, and few individuals are as skilled as Elon Musk at perpetrating frauds. Moreover, coupled with the possibility of accounting fraud, there is the odd fact that Tesla makes little or no profit from making and selling cars. It appears that most, or all, or more than all, of its profits arise from (a) trading in bitcoin and (b) selling regulatory credits to other auto manufacturers. The Financial Times reported on this as well. [38]

Appreciating Assets

Another Tesla fraud involved Elon Musk widely promoting the falsehood that Tesla vehicles were “appreciating assets”. Yet Tesla vehicles depreciate in resale value at about three times the rate of other similar vehicles and, according to auto reports, his famed (and defamed) “Cybertruck depreciates by 58% in the first year”. [39]

Germany Loves Tesla

From an article in Italy’s Corriere Della Sera: “There is no doubt that the Tesla brand is paying for Musk’s entry into politics.” The news source reported that the German T-Online website published a survey to which 100,000 Germans responded, with 94% of them saying they would never buy a Tesla. Oddly, Elon Musk conducted a similar poll the following week which claimed that a full 70% of Germans were just dying to have a Tesla. But then it was discovered that “someone rigged the results with bots, raining down 253,000 votes from two IP addresses in the US.” [40]

Just For Fun

Elon Musk has been exposed three times for fraudulently paying a professional video-gamer to run up a huge score, then turn the game over to Musk, with video cameras in full attendance, to show the world how adept he is at those difficult games. [40a][40b][40c]

And More

The above is by no means the entire list of small Elon Musk frauds. There are many other categories of genuine – and huge – frauds in which Elon Musk and his companies have been engaged, with investigations progressing in several other countries besides the US and Canada. JPMorgan sued Tesla for $162 million [41] related to stock transactions, accusing Musk of flagrantly” breaching a contract”. Morgan had purchased warrants on Tesla stock which would have been very profitable, but Musk’s tweets about taking Tesla private and “funding secured”, cost the bank a lot of money. [42]

Nine European Union countries have filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and X, for allegedly using user data without consent to train its generative AI, Grok. [43] Elon Musk Faces Billion-Dollar EU Fine for Failing to Curb Disinformation on X. [44]German court orders X to hand over election data. [45] Elon Musk’s X sued by Europe’s richest man. [46]French newspapers sue Elon Musk’s X. [47]

Closely related to frauds, and many involving frauds, Elon Musk and his companies are embroiled in dozens of lawsuits, ranging from fatal crashes blamed on Tesla’s Autopilot system to civil rights complaints over the treatment of employees. Lawsuits against Elon Musk and various of his companies have been filed by the US Department of Justice, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, Tesla Shareholders, the Australian eSafety Commissioner, former investors, various former executives, existing and former staff at Tesla and SpaceX, law firms, numerous non-profit watchdog agencies, a long list of individuals, and several class action lawsuits. The lawsuits include charges of fraud, securities fraud, fraudulent advertising, trademark infringement, illegal diversion of financial resources, false and fraudulent claims about the capabilities of Tesla’s “Autopilot”, fatal crashes of Tesla cars, fraudulent claims about Tesla driving range.[47a]

Fraud and Treason: The Privatisation of NASA

The Biden administration announced last year the appointment of SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk as an official strategic advisor to NASA. Musk is now even playing a larger role in the U.S. government, under President Donald Trump. Source

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been receiving much attention in the past few years, taking its place as the pre-eminent space exploration arm of the United States. But no attention seems to be paid to NASA. It is worthy to examine what is happening.

NASA was created in 1958, has had many successes to its credit during those decades, and has never needed help from anyone. But today we are to believe that this institution is now out of date, incompetent, expensive, inefficient, incapable, and must therefore subcontract its duties and activities to a privately-owned firm that can not only do everything better than NASA but can do it at a profit – Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

There is no evidence that NASA deserves any of the criticism listed above, so what is really happening? In all of the media hype about the wonders of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s fraudulent delusions about putting millions of people on Mars in only a decade or so – and at a cost of “only” $1 billion each, everyone seems to have forgotten about NASA. And with good reason: NASA is being surreptitiously privatised, on the way to its eventual elimination and the turning over of America’s entire space program to a private, for-profit company with an agenda diametrically opposed to that of the best interests of the US. [48] This is not sudden; it has been developing for at least 20 years, but the media are either onside or asleep since it has received no attention.

According to Elon Musk, NASA can’t do anything on its own: “It doesn’t matter how smart someone is within the government, it simply can’t be accomplished with that structure.” [49] Musk said further, “I don’t think NASA could establish a self-sustaining city on Mars simply because it would be cost prohibitive. If NASA did it the traditional government way, the cost of doing it would exceed the federal budget.” These, of course, are outright lies. It can be easily proven that virtually all privatisations end with higher costs and poorer service. In reality, a street-sweeper will sweep the same amount of street in the same time and at the same cost, whether he is employed by a government or a private contractor. But the private service will invariably be more expensive because the private contractor will focus on profit. If you want some real-life examples of the “benefits” of privatization, read this article:[50]

To ensure this state of affairs, the head of NASA was replaced by Jared Isaacman, a Jew, a close friend of Elon Musk, and a man who possesses no credentials whatever to head such an agency. [51] Further, Isaacman is an investor in Musk’s SpaceX, so his position as head of NASA is defined primarily by all his conflicts of interest. Musk’s SpaceX has so far received at least $14 billion from NASA, subcontracting an increasing amount of its activities to SpaceX. Isaacman’s main function at NASA is to ensure that most of NASA’s Congressional funding is transferred to his friend’s company. [52]

But neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk have the authority to privatise NASA. This is being done by executive order while Congress remains silent. Neither the American government – Congress – nor the American people have approved the gutting of NASA and its effectual privatization in favor of Elon Musk. This is not only a fraud; it should be categorized as treason.

To assist the transition, Musk’s DOGE is permeating NASA and firing those who object to the privatisation. Musk sent all staff an email that read “What did you do last week?”, [53] warning that “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

This pattern is permeating the entire Donald Trump administration, as you will see in detail below. Donald Trump fires the head of an organisation, then Elon Musk moves in with his DOGE authority and fires all the government staff opposing his agenda. It’s all illegal, and fraudulent as well, because the public words do not at all coincide with the private agenda.

DOGE: One of the Greatest Frauds in Recent History

We are all familiar with Donald Trump’s new DOGE department, saddled with the task of eliminating all the “fraud and waste” in the US Federal Government. Elon Musk claimed he would root out and eliminate “$2 trillion” of this. But in real life, there was never anything remotely resembling $2 trillion in fraud and waste, and there never will be. Many presentations have been made available to the public on identified waste, but these have all been trivial items of one or two million here and there, with a total almost inconsequential. And, to the best of my knowledge, no items of fraud have been uncovered. Elon Musk claims to have uncovered $160 billion of waste, [54] but that is an empty claim made with no supporting evidence. And, since Elon Musk appears to lie about almost everything else, we can safely assume this is also a lie. Musk then lowered this to $120 billion [55] and we can assume the truth will lower it much further yet. And even this $120 billion was not from fraud or waste but simply from cutting staff and programs.

Donald Trump promised to enact tax cuts of $2 trillion for himself, for Elon Musk, and for other of their already-obscenely-wealthy friends. And that is most likely the source of Musk’s claim and eagerness to find $2 trillion in “savings” in the Federal budget. DOGE was never about rooting out fraud and waste, but had two main thrusts in its agenda. One was finding a huge amount of cash to fund the tax cuts. The US Federal budget cannot sustain these because the budget deficit is already too large, and there are few new sources of revenue to fund them. Trump may have been hoping that his tariff wars would produce huge revenue, but this now seems increasingly delusional, and in any case the tariffs would simply constitute another huge tax on the American population who are already struggling to stay afloat. Taxing the poor to fund the rich; a class war by any measure. Here are three articles by CNN[56], the Associated Press[57], and ABC news[58], that provide a summary of the scale of DOGE’s firing of staff.

But there is something else here, the second of the two main thrusts in the Trump/Musk agenda, one of great importance, but which is so obvious that almost no one seems to have noticed. The entire DOGE charade is a two-step process:

(1) Donald Trump fires the head of a secretariat, for example the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

(2) Elon Musk, with his DOGE authority, fires the staff of entire departments within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

If this doesn’t appear sinister to you, it should. I will explain.

When Donald Trump assumed office, Elon Musk and his companies faced around $2.5 billion in potential federal fines and penalties for a litany of crimes, frauds and other transgressions of law. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations produced a report titled, “Estimating the Legal Liability Elon Musk May Avoid Through His Government Takeover”. [59] According to this report, Musk and his companies were “subject to at least 65 actual or potential actions by 11 different federal agencies” and that these created $2.5 billion in potential liabilities. The memo stated. “The through line connecting many of Mr. Musk’s decisions appears to be self-enrichment and avoiding what he perceives as obstacles to advancing his interests.”

The memo notes that “Musk’s companies have received more than $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits“. It states “President Trump could not have chosen a person more prone to conflicts of interest“, and demanded that “regulatory agencies “take coordinated action to address Elon Musk’s threat to the integrity of federal governance”. Even worse, there is a published report that documents Trump’s actions to stop or dismiss investigations against 89 corporations, including Musk’s companies. [60]These primarily involved Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink and Musk’s Boring Company. There are many obvious examples of Musk’s conflicts and self-serving attitude. The FAA had a $2.5 billion contract with Verizon to upgrade their communications, but it was apparently canceled and given to Musk’s Starlink. The Washington Post[61] and other sources [62] commented on this glaring and self-serving conflict of interest. There are many such fraudulent contracts being awarded.

To add to the Senate investigation report, there is also a public letter from Senator Elizabeth Warren[63] which begins:

Dear President Trump:

“We are concerned that you have engaged in an unlawful firing spree that includes dozens of Senate-confirmed government officials. Many of the individuals you have targeted lead federal agencies and offices that are investigating or prosecuting companies belonging to Elon Musk, … for violations of a wide swath of federal safety, labor, intelligence, and other rules and laws. The firings of these officials threaten our democratic system of checks and balances and fail to hold Mr. Musk accountable for actions that may have hurt workers, endangered national security and citizens’ and small businesses’ data, ripped off taxpayers, damaged the environment, and broken federal election rules.”

It is (or should be) of much concern that Elon Musk is not only avoiding criminal sanctions for all his frauds, but has been placed in a position where he is able to siphon off lucrative contracts from the same agencies he is eviscerating. I have never in my life seen such brazen fraud, criminality, and open marauding as this Trump/Musk partnership. And it is having an effect: many of the agencies in question have already stated publicly that they will no longer be pursuing Elon Musk or his companies.

Here are five substantial media reports:

Trump Purges Inspectors General Investigating Musk’s Businesses

Elon Musk’s Business Empire Scores Benefits Under Trump Shake-Up

Trump fires independent inspectors general in Friday night purge

Elon Musk’s dream comes true: The federal board that protects workers does not exist, at least for now

Elon Musk’s long list of legal battles

Senator Warren’s letter continues:

“Nearly all of your decisions you made about who to fire appear to benefit Mr. Musk, and many target individuals and agencies that are currently investigating or prosecuting Mr. Musk or his companies for unlawful behavior. You have also fired numerous other agency leaders and IGs who would have provided a check on potential wrongdoing by Musk and his companies. These federal watchdogs could have held Musk and his associates accountable for future violations of the law.”

“Altogether, these firings either directly benefit Mr. Musk and his companies or remove guardrails that would hold them accountable to the rule of law. The impacts are vast: in total, your removals of agency heads and career civil servants have affected at least eleven federal agencies with more than thirty-two ongoing investigations, complaints, or enforcement actions on Mr. Musk’s companies.”

“Mr. Musk has failed to address conflicts of interest related to his involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency while serving as CEO of multiple companies that have significant interests before the federal government. Musk is required to comply with federal conflict of interest prohibitions that prohibit him “from personally and substantially participating in any particular matter that would have a direct and predictable effect on his financial interests,” but the White House has stated that he will be in charge of policing his own compliance with the law, and he has provided no indication of whether he is doing so. Now, these firings have removed the exact individuals in our government who would hold Mr. Musk and his companies accountable for following the law.”

In this brief video, Elon Musk says that the biggest source of corruption is the government giving money to what he calls NGOs, where there is no oversight over the money. [64] But that is precisely what is being done with huge government contracts to Musk’s own companies. There are no “controls” there either.

And that is the entire story. Donald Trump is acting as a dictator, as if the entire US government were his private fiefdom. And he is gutting much of that government to pay for tax cuts for his Deep State puppet-masters, and to protect his friend Elon Musk from billions of dollars in fines and even potential prison sentences.This truly is one of the greatest frauds in recent history.

Appendix:

In this Appendix, I have included a brief summary of some of the Secretariat and Department heads fired by Donald Trump, in preparation for Elon Musk to enter those secretariats and fire the entire staff of the departments that were investigating, charging, or suing Musk. I urge you to read the entire Senate Report [65] and Senator Warren’s letter [66] from which the following have been extracted for your information:

NLRB Chair Gwynne Wilcox. The NLRB charged Mr. Musk’s SpaceX with engaging in unfair labor practices. The NLRB also currently has at least a dozen unfair labor practices cases open against Mr. Musk’s Tesla.

FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub. The FEC adjudicated cases that alleged Mr. Musk may have violated campaign finance laws

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Tesla for racial harassment and retaliation

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigated potential animal welfare violations at Musk’s brain implant
company Neuralink

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was inspecting the use of Starlink terminals to support Ukraine.

U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) opened an investigation into Tesla over safety concerns in its remote and self-driving vehicles

The Federal Aviation Administration fined SpaceX $630,000 for failing to follow license requirements during rocket launches

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) IG Robert Storch. opened an investigation into repeated failures by Musk and SpaceX to disclose their meetings with foreign leaders

U.S. Department of Labor “has opened probes into and fined SpaceX, Tesla and Boring Company for worker injuries or unsafe working conditions.”

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

His full archive can be seen at

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

2186604556@qq.com

NOTES Part 5

[1] Does Elon Musk Have an Undergraduate Degree in Physics?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/

[2] Does Elon Musk Have an Undergraduate Degree in Physics?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/

[3] Elon Musk Is Often Called a “Genius,” But What College Degrees Does He Actually Hold?
https://www.distractify.com/p/elon-musk-degrees.

[4] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 1 — Building a Legend, One Lie at a Time
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/20405/

[5] Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/report-sutskever-led-board-coup-at-openai-that-ousted-altman-over-ai-safety-concerns/

[6] Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman: The Battle Over OpenAI’s Future Intensifies
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/cryptocurrency-analytics-insight/best-crypto-to-buy-now-as-elon-musk-vs-openai-heats-up-and-new-ai-agent-enters-testing-phase

[7] Judge Slaps Down Elon Musk in Feud With AI Rival Sam Altman
https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-slaps-down-elon-musks-request-to-block-openais-for-profit-planfor-now/

[8] SEC continuing $150 million lawsuit against Elon Musk over Twitter purchase
https://abcnews.go.com/US/sec-continuing-150-million-lawsuit-elon-musk-twitter/story?id=120343524

[9] Elon Musk’s long list of legal battles
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/540187-elon-musks-long-list-of-legal-battles.html

[10] Twitter sues to force Musk to complete his $44B acquisition
https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-0affe680bb9ce5dcc2bde32e294d87c9

[11] Elon Musk’s long list of legal battles
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/540187-elon-musks-long-list-of-legal-battles.html

[12] 17 fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

[13] Tesla Suddenly Suspends Full Self-Driving Trial in China
https://futurism.com/tesla-suspends-full-self-driving-china

[14] Tesla under Elon Musk made the first best electric car. But will it make the next?
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/tesla-elon-musk-electric-vehicle-b2496076.html

[15] Musk directs fake video of self-driving auto
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-19/elon-musk-directed-tesla-autopilot-video-saying-car-drove-itself-tsla

[16] Steve Wozniak: If You Want to Learn About AI Killing People, “Get a Tesla”
https://futurism.com/the-byte/steve-wozniak-ai-killing-people-tesla

[17] Tesla exaggerated EV range so much that drivers thought cars were broken
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/tesla-exaggerated-ev-range-so-much-that-drivers-thought-cars-were-broken/

[18] Tesla exaggerated EV range so much that drivers thought cars were broken
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/tesla-exaggerated-ev-range-so-much-that-drivers-thought-cars-were-broken/

[19] DOJ probing Tesla’s EV range after reports of exaggerated numbers
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/23/23928563/tesla-doj-ev-range-exaggerate-investigation

[20] Tesla exaggerated its cars’ driving range, report says
https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/tesla-exaggerated-its-cars-driving-range-report-says/

[21] Elon Musk had Tesla overstate its battery range. Tesla then canceled related service appointments.
https://mashable.com/article/tesla-elon-musk-inflated-driving-range-report

[22] Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

[22a] Report: Tesla Accused Drivers for Failures of Parts It Knew Were Defective
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a46189608/report-tesla-blamed-drivers-for-part-failures/

[23] The Big List of Elon Musk’s Hyperbole, Evasions, and Outright Lies
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/

[24] Tesla, Inc.
https://www.britannica.com/money/Tesla-Motors

[25] Musk lawyer argues false tweets were just “technical wordsmith inaccuracies”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/elon-musks-lies-about-tesla-deal-cost-regular-people-millions-jury-hears/

[26] Elon Musk found not guilty of fraud over Tesla tweet
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64520157

[27] Elon Musk Investor Trial
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-investor-trial.html

[28] US “Neo-imperialism: Musk attacks Trudeau
https://www.defenddemocracy.press/elon-musk-mocks-justin-trudeau-after-trumps-merger-call-girl-youre-not-governor-of-canada-anymore/

[29] Canada Freezes $43 Million in Tesla EV Rebates, Bans Future Eligibility Over Tariff Dispute
https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/canada-freezes-43-million-in-tesla-ev-rebates-bans-future-eligibility-over-tariff-dispute/

[30] Tesla sees 70% drop in Q1 profits amid backlash
https://globalnews.ca/news/11144171/tesla-profits-drop-q1-2025-elon-musk-backlash/

[31] Canada Threatens 45,000 Tesla Sales
https://247wallst.com/cars-and-drivers/2025/03/26/canada-threatens-45000-tesla-sales/

[32] Tesla Gamed The System To Steal Tens Of Millions In Canadian Incentives On The Final Day Of Eligibility
https://www.jalopnik.com/1807796/tesla-last-minute-canadian-incentives-eligibility-request/

[33] Canada Freezes $43 Million in Tesla EV Rebates, Bans Future Eligibility Over Tariff Dispute
https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/canada-freezes-43-million-in-tesla-ev-rebates-bans-future-eligibility-over-tariff-dispute/

[34] Tesla says $43 million in mass iZEV claims was ‘misunderstanding’
https://driving.ca/auto-news/industry/tesla-canada-izev-ev-rebate-claims-misunderstanding-lawsuit

[35] Filling in that Tesla ‘crack’
https://www.ft.com/content/d2711678-af23-4b71-852b-1ef2e932e14b

[36] Tesla accounting frauds, bad recall history
https://www.douyin.com/video/7484170412536958268

[37] Tesla board members, executive sell off over $100 million of stock in recent weeks
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tesla-board-members-executive-sell-off-100-million/story

[38] Tesla and the obscure earnings
https://www.ft.com/content/8014e86f-c06d-4175-ad63-f459d7cd9929

[39] Tesla vehicles are losing value at 3 times the rate of the rest of the market
https://electrek.co/2025/03/17/tesla-used-car-prices-falling-3x-rest-market/

[40] The piloted survey
https://www.corriere.it/dataroom-milena-gabanelli/auto-tesla-perche-musk-vende-meno-ma-in-borsa-vale-piu-di-tutti/d7c7a6a0-4414-4302-a998-8d824d028xlk.shtml?refresh_ce

[40a] Elon Musk Faking His Path of Exile 2 Account Proves He Is a Fraud
https://www.unz.com/aanglin/elon-musk-faking-his-path-of-exile-2-account-proves-he-is-a-fraud-and-a-stupid-petty-fraud-at-that/

[40b] Elon Musk Is Being Accused of Cheating in Video Games
https://www.distractify.com/p/elon-musk-accused-of-cheating-video-games

[40c] Elon Musk Admits He Lied – Because “It’s Impossible To Beat Players In Asia If You Don’t.”
https://earlygame.com/news/gaming/elon-musk-admits-he-lied-because-its-impossible-to-beat-players-in-asia-if-you-dont

[41] JPMorgan sues Tesla for $162 million over stock warrants, Musk tweets
https://www.cnbctv18.com/market/jpmorgan-sues-tesla-for-162-million-over-stock-warrants-musk-tweets-11478252.htm

[42] The Big List of Elon Musk’s Hyperbole, Evasions, and Outright Lies
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/

[43] Elon Musk, X Sued by Nine EU Countries Over AI Data Claims
https://mexicobusiness.news/cloudanddata/news/elon-musk-x-sued-nine-eu-countries-over-ai-data-claims

[44] Elon Musk Faces Billion-Dollar EU Fine for Failing to Curb Disinformation on X
https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-musk-faces-billion-dollar-eu-fine-for-failing-to-curb-disinformation

[45] German court orders X to hand over election data
https://www.politico.eu/article/berlin-court-orders-x-hand-over-election-data-legal-blow-elon-musk-platform/

[46] Elon Musk’s X sued by Europe’s richest man
https://news-pravda.com/world/2024/11/13/848380.html

[47] French newspapers sue Elon Musk’s X
https://san.com/cc/french-newspapers-sue-elon-musks-x-over-content-payments/

[47a] Elon Musk and his companies are embroiled in dozens of lawsuits
https://elonlawsuits.com/

[48] Elon Musk and NASA: The Space Privatization Shift
https://thewashingtoneye.com/the-privatization-of-space-elon-musks-takeover-of-nasas-future/

[149] Why NASA is turning to Elon Musk
https://money.cnn.com/2014/09/18/technology/space-shuttle-nasa/index.html

[50] A Further Look at Privatisation
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/5647/

[51] Trump’s unconventional NASA pick signals Mars intentions in confirmation hearing
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/09/science/nasa-administrator-hearing-jared-isaacman/index.html

[52] ‘Further and faster’: Why Trump’s NASA pick is sending shock waves through the space community
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/06/science/nasa-chief-trump-pick-jared-isaacman

[53] Elon Musk says NASA staff ‘face being fired’ if they don’t respond to six word demand
https://www.unilad.com/technology/nasa/elon-musk-doge-nasa-federal-staff-resignation-email-010880-20250224

[54] DOGE says it has saved $160 billion
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-cuts-cost-135-billion-analysis-elon-musk-department-of-government-efficiency/

[55] Elon Musk and DOGE eye $120 billion in cuts
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-doge-diversity-diversity-b2681232.html

[56] Analyzing the scale of Trump’s federal layoffs in his first 100 days
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/26/politics/federal-layoffs-trump-musk-dg

[57] A comprehensive look at DOGE’s firings and layoffs so far
https://apnews.com/article/doge-firings-layoffs-federal-government-workers-musk-d33cdd7872d64d2bdd8fe70c28652654

[58] Here are all the agencies federal workers are being fired from
https://abc7news.com/post/has-been-laid-off-doge-comprehensive-look-doges-firings-layoffs-far/15933900/

[59] Estimating the Legal Liability Elon Musk May Avoid Through His Government Takeover
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-04-27-Minority-Staff-Memorandum-Elon-Musk-Conflicts.pdf

[60] Trump Musk actions
https://www.citizen.org/article/corporate-clemency-trump-enforcement-report/

[61] Musk, Starlink, DOGE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/26/musk-starlink-doge-faa-verizon/

[62] SpaceX’s Starlink lines up to swoop Verizon’s $2.4bn FAA contract
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/starlink-lines-up-swoop-for-verizons-24bn-faa-contract-reports/

[63] We are concerned that you have engaged in an unlawful firing spree
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_from_senator_warren_to_trump_on_commissioner_firings_and_musk.pdf

[64] Musk lies on DOGE, corruption.
https://www.douyin.com/video/7480586615019031859

[65] Estimating the Legal Liability Elon Musk May Avoid Through His Government Takeover
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-04-27-Minority-Staff-Memorandum-Elon-Musk-Conflicts.pdf

[66] We are concerned that you have engaged in an unlawful firing spree
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_from_senator_warren_to_trump_on_commissioner_firings_and_musk.pdf

This article may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorised by the copyright owner. This content is being made available under the Fair Use doctrine, and is for educational and information purposes only. There is no commercial use of this content.

Other Works by this Author